Qantas story

The Qantas story

Covenant trial smashes glass recycling ceiling

The Melbourne Qantas Club lounge welcomes between 5000 and 7000 members each day. And, when a Qantas Club member wants a beer, around 90 per cent of those members choose to drink beer from a bottle rather than a tap. As a result, each day the Qantas Club ends with thousands and thousands of empty bottles. Despite the best efforts of bar staff to recycle waste, in some cases as little as 10 per cent of glass is recycled from the hospitality industry in Australia because of contamination and restrictions with the recycling process. The remaining glass ends up in landfill.  Passionate Qantas Club staff wanted to discover a better way. The Melbourne Qantas Club was committed to finding a better way to stop packaging waste but make bottle disposal easier for staff. Staff were aware that a large amount of packaging was passing through the doors and questioned where it was going, horrified that it might be ending up in landfill. Qantas Club staff looked at the way the beer was packaged. Beer is generally sent in cardboard six packs, in cardboard slabs and each bottle has a cap. In addition, wine bottles, cordial containers, juice bottles and so forth revealed that the actual amount of packaging being thrown away could be substantial.

BottleCycler reduces amount of glass sent to landfill because it crushes bottles to consistent size for recycling and makes it easy for staff to dispose of bottles.

The Melbourne Qantas Club joined forces with the Qantas Property team and discovered a machine called a ‘BottleCycler’ which crushes bottles on site to a consistent size for recycling, increasing glass recycling rates to 80 per cent. Further investigation led the team to an Australian first trial in Melbourne funded by the National Packaging Covenant and the Packaging Stewardship Forum, and supported by Melbourne City Council, which offered hospitality venues a free two-month trial to use the BottleCycler machine. Qantas Club Lounge enthusiastically took up the offer in August 2007, and since that time, the BottleCycler machine has processed more than 361,000 bottles or 72.2 tonnes and this has resulted in 72,000 kilograms of glass diverted from landfill.

National Packaging Covenant CEO Ed Cordner, said: “this is an excellent example of how the National Packaging Covenant works with companies to improve the environmental performance of packaging.” “The BottleCycler has reduced the amount of time required to dispose of the used bottles, is easy to use and allows staff at the Melbourne Qantas Club more time to be with their members,” Mr Cordner said.

The Qantas Group is a National Packaging Covenant signatory* which means they sign and agree to certain responsibilities to stop packaging ending up in landfill. In Australia, more than 80% of all packaged retail brands sold are Covenant signatories - packing a powerful punch towards packaging sustainability. Qantas intends to continue to work with their extensive network of suppliers to find solutions that will reduce the amount of packaging waste as a result of its operations and supports initiatives such as the ‘BottleCycler’. They commend the Melbourne Qantas Club and the Property department on their efforts and drive to get the project up and running. Mr Cordner said the machine was particularly useful for the hospitality industry. “When pubs were built 100 years ago, they were never designed to cope with the large number of empty glass bottles they face today,” he said. “Glass bottles are generally thrown in tubs and lifted into large co-mingled recycling bins outside. Because of factors such as breakage and contamination, at the recycling plants smaller pieces cannot be sorted and go to landfill. The BottleCycler helps stop this occurring.” The National Packaging Covenant currently funds more than 50 projects across Australia worth a total cost of $47 million, which identify better ways to recycle, reuse or stop packaging ending up in landfill. These projects have the potential to divert 500,000 tonnes of consumer packaging from landfill.