97% drink container recycling rate
achieved at Homebake 07 festival

Looking to improve on the previous years' drink container recycling rates, organisers of a large outdoor music festival decided on a new approach for the 2007 event.

Patrons of Homebake 07 were only able to purchase drinks at the event, i.e. no drinks were able to be brought into the event site. This enabled the organisers to implement a $1.00 container deposit charge redeemable on recycling the container.  This assigned an economic value to aluminium and PET drink containers purchased at the event.

What were the results?

• 97% (115,646) of aluminium cans sold were recycled
• 95% (8,550) or PET plastic bottles sold were recycled
• 97% or 1, 914kg of aluminium and PET plastic sold were diverted away from landfill.

Additionally the event site, the beautiful Domain in Sydney, was kept very clean which made for a safer site and less damage to the Domain.

How did the recycling system work?

1. A $1.00 deposit for the drink container was included in the price of drinks purchased from the onsite bars
2. Four recycling centres were set up with each next to a main bar
3. A $1.00 drink voucher was provided to patrons for each empty drink containers handed into recycling centre staff
4. The $1.00 drink voucher could be used towards the next drink purchased at the onsite bar or redeemed at the bar for the original $1.00 drink container deposit paid.

This system was very successful for this public place event where people didn't bring drinks purchased offsite to the event and the control over sale and recycling of drink containers was able to be managed onsite.

The Homebake 07 recycling system was developed with the help of the Global Protection Agency, a company that specialises in reducing an event's environmental footprint.