It takes a village: recycling at the Remembrance aged care facility

The entire community at Remembrance Village in Wagga Wagga have embraced container recycling with Return and Earn, with residents and staff at the aged care facility all doing their bit to fundraise for the social committee.

After noticing how many lemonade bottles were being thrown out at the Village, Wellbeing Coordinator Adrian Hallam arranged dedicated container recycling bins for each dining room. This kept the lemonade bottles, and other recyclable drink containers, separate from the litter stream and meant they could be redeemed with Return and Earn for the 10-cent refunds.

Residents were quick to take part in organising the recycling and helping to promote the initiative within the Village.

“We have four ladies who look after the bottles in each of the dining rooms, and since they became involved we’ve got more bottles. We also have families of residents who bring containers in. It’s created a real community atmosphere,” said Adrian.

Every couple of weeks, staff and residents from the 83-bed facility bring the latest load of containers to the Vinnies-operated Return and Earn depot in Wagga Wagga on the village bus.

The trip to the depot has become quite a social outing. “We play a game on the bus on the way where everyone guesses how much we’ll make from the returns. We do some trivia and tell some jokes,” he said.

The money they raise from Return and Earn is managed by the village social committee. The fundraising began in March 2023 and they generally make around $60 each month, which has been used to buy equipment and fund activities.

“We got a new clock for the community room, one that is easy to read. We also spent some money on CDs and players for each community room. At Christmas some of the funds went towards a bus trip to see the lights with a visit to McDonald’s,” said Adrian.

The staff are just as enthusiastic as the residents, making sure all their containers go into the recycling bins too.

“It’s a whole village thing now. The residents run it, I just help facilitate it,” he said.