Waste at Work: small sorts, big difference

The bin decision that changes everything

Most of us want to get our waste right. We're just not always sure how - and the difference between the right bin and the wrong one is bigger than it looks.
 
Get it right and food scraps become fertiliser, cartridges get a second life, and materials stay in use instead of heading to landfill. Get it wrong and one stray item can undo a whole bin. So here's what's worth knowing.

Did you know?

• Food waste sorted right doesn't rot in landfill producing methane - it's processed into fertiliser, keeping nutrients in use and out of the ground.
• One discarded lithium battery can spark a serious fire in the wrong recycling bin.
• "Compostable" packaging isn't food waste - it's dry waste, and some of it carries forever chemicals that can end up in the soil that grows our food.
• Recycling ink and toner cartridges keeps them out of landfill and feeds a circular economy.

Small facts, but they add up to a very different coffee cup in your hand. And every tea bag you sort right keeps nutrients in the loop. 

Getting it right

Simple guidance, the same wherever you are in the building:

• Coffee cups - lids off, liquid out, both in dry waste.
• Tea bags - food waste. String, tag and staple can stay.
• Compostable packaging - scrape it clean, then dry waste.
• Toner cartridges and old e-waste - hand them to your office manager, never the bin.

The best sort is the one you never have to make. Skip the disposable cup altogether with Borrow by Huskee - the free, app-based reusable cup program right here at the precinct.

Scan a cup at a participating café (Toby's Estate in Towers Two and Three, or South Coffee & Food), enjoy your coffee, then drop it at a return bin in the lobby. No deposit, no washing, no rush - you've got 14 days, and every cup is commercially cleaned for you.

Australians bin 2.7 million single-use cups a day. If just one in ten of us here made the switch, we'd save thousands of cups from landfill every week - for a coffee that tastes exactly the same.

You'll spot these reminders around the precinct over the coming weeks. But the sorting is the point - and it starts the moment you're standing at the bin.