Recycling Near You is doing more than providing information to 1.8 million people
By Ryan Collins 31 October 2022
For over 16 years, Planet Ark’s Recycling Near You has been providing recycling information to householders. It is Australia's most comprehensive database for recycling and reuse information.
Planet Ark research shows around 5.6 million Australians are aware of Recycling Near You (up from 4.9 million in 2021) with approximately 1.8 million users each year. In the past three years, it received more than 12 million pageviews, with Planet Ark’s Information Centre team fielding over 7,700 recycling enquiries from the community.
Recycling Near You isn’t just a free service for householders to help them recycle more; its data supports the Australasian Recycling Label’s evidence-base for assessing the recyclability of packaging. The data is regularly checked with all local councils and updated by Planet Ark’s Information Centre.
The platform also features educational resources beyond recycling, providing guidance on actions that will have a greater benefit to the environment than recycling such as reducing and reusing products and materials. Recycling Near You’s Reuse Hub features helpful tips on how to reuse items to keep materials in use at their highest value for as long as possible.
A redesign of the website three years ago has allowed Recycling Near You to drive traffic to its accompanying platform, Business Recycling, which provides recycling and reuse information for businesses and workplaces. In the past three years, Recycling Near You has referred close to 30,000 users to Business Recycling, contributing to its success. Business Recycling recently broke the half a million material searches barrier, resulting in an estimated 5.6 million kilograms of materials diverted from landfill in just three years.
In the past year*, clothing/textiles was again the most searched for material on Recycling Near You, followed by computers and batteries. The top 10 searched materials were (with the previous year’s position in brackets):
Clothing (1)
Computers (3)
Batteries (7)
Polystyrene (2)
White Goods (5)
Paper and cardboard (9)
X-rays (8)
Mattresses (6)
Electrical appliances (4)
Cartridges (10)
Recycling Near You is made possible with thanks to page sponsors Cartridges 4 Planet Ark, Ecycle Solutions, MobileMuster, Paintback and Tetra Pak.
*1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022
After nearly a decade working in the banking and finance industry, Ryan was drawn to a career in sustainability that saw him work in diverse roles such as monitoring and evaluation, threatened species and sustainable agriculture. With a background in psychology and environmental management, Ryan’s role at Planet Ark since 2012 has focused on delivering behaviour change campaigns and research that help individuals, businesses, government and schools transition to a circular economy.
