Perth City Farm Community Recycling Hub · Perth City Farm Community Recycling Hub ... all those who visit our site ... polluted site is now a thriving community garden and has become

Community Grant Scheme (CGS) Perth City Farm Evaluation Report

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Perth City Farm Community Recycling Hub

Final Project Evaluation Report

Waste Authority Community Grants Scheme

Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Account

“This publication has been produced through a grant project funded by the Waste

Authority. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily

reflect the position or policy of the Waste Authority or Government of Western

Australia, which may not be held responsible for the accuracy of information

provided, nor is it liable for any and all outcomes from the use of this information”.

Perth City Farm’s Community Recycling Hub Launch Event

Saturday May 20th, 2017


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Perth City Farm has introduced a recycling hub for the collection of numerous

household items that would otherwise pollute the environment if dumped at

municipal landfill sites. The building of this facility was made possible because we

received a grant from the Waste Authority’s Community Grant Scheme in 2015.

This ‘Community Recycling Hub’ will service City of Perth residents as well as the

wider community that visit our Saturday Farmer’s Market, the popular City Farm

Cafe, our Twilight Series Festivals, the general public and those who attend our

tours and workshops in the coming years.

Integral to this facility is the education we will deliver. This facility will enable us to

highlight the 5 principles of waste management effectively. Perth City Farm has

been delivering waste education since 1994 receiving a State Community award in

2001. This Recycling facility with its colourful and informative education signage will

increase our ability to educate formally through our programs, as well as informally to

all those who visit our site

On May 20th 2017, we held a ‘launch ceremony’ for our new recycling hub and

invited people to attend our 9 workshops that focused on avoiding, reducing, reusing,

recycling or responsibly disposing of waste (or a combination of these). We plan to

continue the delivery of these workshops and more through our education programs

targeting people of all ages from schools, TAFE, University, Community Groups and

other organisations along with local people.

Perth City Farm will use this education and information distribution facility as an

avenue to positively impact the community on how they treat waste. The workshops

held through Perth City Farm will also provide a venue for socialising and community

engagement, and expose residents to several ‘green’ initiatives including other not-

for-profit organisations that we will partner with in the future.

Subsequently we see our Recycling Hub providing the community with the

opportunity to have a hand in improving the lives of underprivileged people both in

Australia and overseas, by being a deposit point for the collection of many reusable

and recyclable items that are valuable, and that would normally find their way into

waste streams, that could help to re-clothe, re-shoe or other reusable resources,

thus contributing to those less fortunate then ourselves.


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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

About Perth City Farm - Branch of Men of the Trees Inc

Perth City Farm is a place that nurtures community for people of all ages and

backgrounds. We focus on the relationships between people and the environment,

society, and one another.

We are a not-for-profit organisation hidden away in East Perth, located along the

train line and adjacent to the Central Business District. Perth City Farm is an

operational ethical farm and nursery run by a team of dedicated and inspirational

workers and volunteers. Every Saturday morning we play host to the popular

Saturday Farmer’s Market to showcase our wonderful garden produce, nursery items

and a number of certified organic products from our ‘Farm Door Shop’. The

marketplace attracts a mix of sellers with a range or fresh and packaged items that

are organic, biodynamic, in organic conversion or produced ethically and

sustainably.

Perth City Farm is a Men of the Trees initiative founded in 1994 on the site of a

former scrap metal yard and battery recycling facility. This once toxic and highly

polluted site is now a thriving community garden and has become a Western

Australian icon for environmental sustainability and community engagement.

For more than 20 years, Perth City Farm has been developing relationships with

community, private and government organisations in an effort to promote PEACE;

Permaculture & the environment

Education,

Arts,

Community & personal development, &

Enterprise

Perth City Farm Contact Information

1 City Farm Place,

East Perth, WA 6004

(08) 9325 7229 www.perthcityfarm.org.au / www.facebook.com/PerthCityFarm/

http://www.perthcityfarm.org.au/

http://www.facebook.com/PerthCityFarm/


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PROJECT DESCRIPTION – In a nutshell!

1.Build a recycling hub for the disposal of hazardous goods particularly for City of

Perth Residents.

2. Educate the public at large by providing workshops, tours and a well-signed facility

that addresses all 5 of the waste management principles. Those visiting will be

encouraged to avoid disposing of waste such as printer cartridges, batteries, fluoro

light tubes and mobile phones into landfill, and to participate in minimising their

regular household waste, thereby producing a number of positive environmental

outcomes such as;

- Avoiding water and soil pollution because of the leaching of chemicals such

as mercury and cadmium, from items like printer cartridges and batteries.

- Recycling metals, glass and plastics avoids the need for the production of

replacement resources and mining of virgin materials; saving huge quantities

of water and energy.

- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and methane production that would

otherwise occur during decomposition.

- Avoiding the loss of embodied energy in already existing products.

3. Celebrate the Facility with a Launch event that includes inspiring workshops and

raises awareness of the services we will provide to reduce waste into landfill.

4. Collecting information regarding people’s habits and knowledge around waste.

PROJECT GOALS

Anticipated Project Goals and Outcomes

The most reliable and important method to measure this project's success will be to

record the volume of goods that are collected on-site in conjunction with Mindarie

Regional Council. A successful project will not only yield significant volumes, but

should be ever increasing as information and adverts of the service spread further

afield. Perth City Farm will record this information every time we schedule a pickup

with Mindarie Regional Council, send a box off to Terracycle, or hand over the items

to ReMida WA.

Surveying visitors to the weekly organic markets and café would help us gain an

understanding of how successful advertising was throughout the promotional period.

We would speak to people to ensure they knew of this service and the upcoming

educational workshops.

We expect a successful recycling hub would also result in requests from visitors

about other waste streams that they would wish to avail themselves of – we will keep

informal notes on these conversations as they come to hand. With the assistance of


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the City of Perth we hope to survey residents on a quarterly basis via their website to

gain an understanding of their knowledge and their behaviours regarding waste

given their access to this program. The final details of this partnership and it’s

potential are currently undergoing review. Over time we anticipate people’s habits

would change; they would no longer dispose of organic and green waste, batteries,

e-waste, globes and hazardous chemicals in municipal waste bins.

Collecting Household Hazardous Waste Streams for Mindarie Regional Council

Guests enjoying Shelley’s ‘Repurposing Pallets’ workshop


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LAUNCH EVENT

Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony was warmly received by those who attended. We

commenced a ‘Welcome to Country’ by Rev. Sealin Garlett a Nyungar elder, chair of

the Uniting Aboriginal & Islander Christian Congress (WA) and deputy chair of the

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission. He is one of

the Stolen Generation and has worked tirelessly for reconciliation. Rev. Sealin spoke

in language and then translated for us in English - his message of reconciliation

between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people was deeply emotional and heartfelt by

all those present. Perth City Farm are passionately committed to acknowledging our

first nation people whose land we share and enjoy.

We were honoured to have the State MLA for Perth, Mr John Carey who reminded

the audience of the importance of places such as Perth City Farm. He commented

on the warm welcoming atmosphere that engaged the community. He also stated

that the new State Government was committed to reduction of waste and the

adoption of a deposit scheme that will contribute to people being motivated to

recycle.

Three members of the Perth City Farm’s Koordarm Choir, led by Kobi Morrison,

performed songs in the Nyungar language adding to the warm atmosphere.

Finally, Mr Marcus Geisler, Chair of the Waste Authority presented his speech

outlining the purpose of the Community Grants Scheme that provides community

groups with up to $20,000 for projects that reduce waste, recover resources and

lessen the impact of waste on the environment, such as the facility being launched

that day.

He spoke about how this funding assisted Perth City Farm build the Recycling Hub

which will enable us to enhance our existing Recycling, School Tours and Education

programs – acknowledging how our community works tirelessly to increase

awareness of recycling and waste management issues in the local community.

Mr Geisler’s address touched on the seriousness of reducing waste and the

importance of a hazardous waste facility that can be easily accessed by the

residents of the City of Perth.

In the audience was Nathan Ahern, Manager of Waste and Cleaning for the City of

Perth and Kylie Howarth Senior Waste Management Officer.

Our challenge was to collect our audience to enable us to commence proceedings

on time. Our street theatre performers dressed up as a fluoro light globe and


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disposable battery - the costumes supplied courtesy of Peg Davies, Waste

Education Officer Mindarie Regional Council were a hit as they encourage people to

participate in the Launch.

Also present were 4 members of Perth City Farm Management Committee along

with 30 visitors.

Opening Ceremony Launch with ‘Welcome to Country’ with Rev. Sealin Garlett

Workshop Summary - Avoid, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Dispose

Some of the workshops were capped for attendance to ensure a quality experience.

Participants had to book to attend the pallet recycling, children’s workshop with

Junkadelic, and the cooking with Chef Tim.

WORKSHOP Attendees WORKSHOP Attendees

Composting Masterclass 8 Wonderful World of Worms 20

Pallet recycling 10 Using your bins correctly 20

Bags from old t-shirts 10 Cooking with Chef Tim 22

Avoiding Waste 10

Junkadelic – Kids workshop 50 TOTAL 150


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Recycle your t-shirt into a shopping bag!

Thousands of litres of water is used during the manufacturing process of garments.

Many Australians throw out their clothes, which often end up in landfill. Second hand

clothing establishments such as the Good Samaritans inevitably pay millions of

dollars in tip fees as “do-gooders” pass on degraded clothing and other textiles which

often cannot even be used as rags.

This workshop demonstrated to participants that they can up-cycle old t-shirts into

shopping bags thereby ‘killing 2 birds’ - upcycling unwanted clothing and doing away

with plastic bags - win-win.

Composting Masterclass with Manoji

Cooking with your Scraps - By Chef Tim Kershaw

This workshop introduced the concept of creating valuable items from potential

waste products such as beef bones, old vegetables, and fruit peel.

Participants were greeted to a restaurant style set up with full place settings. Our

community volunteer centre has a licensed commercial kitchen and is an ideal

teaching space.

Participants took their place and the lesson started - the theme - “you don’t have to

waste anything!”

- You can create foods and products that are usually expensive to buy

such as specialty vinegars from pineapple skins,

- Use the dehydrator to make tasty morsels of fruit that may end up in

the bin if not treated,


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- Learn lacto-fermentation process to pickle vegetables so that excess

food/produce is not wasted.

We were all treated to a 2 course meal - Tim used lamb and pineapple courses as

reference points for ideas about using scraps and leftovers in your kitchens to make

healthy, tasty meals (see appendix 5).

Cooking with Scraps by Tim Kershaw

Junkadelic Children’s workshop

The team from Junkadelic are a well-seasoned group of musicians that are

passionate about educating people on how to reduce waste to landfill. Children

made musical instruments from recycled materials and then joined in a ‘jam session’.

This workshop was well attended and is a winner!

Repurposing Pallets - making new furniture

Pallet recycling has become the rage over the last 5 years and so this workshop was

popular and got filled up fast. Our toolshed transformed into a classroom where there

was purposeful sawing of timber and hammering of nails. Perth City Farm is a

working example of repurposed and upcycled timber produced from old cafe tables,

office furniture, cupboards, signage, repurposed picket fences, the chook coup and

garden furniture.

Guests enjoying the Kids Workshop with Junkadelic


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Wonderful World of Worms Workshop

Peg Davies’ workshop was very well attended as her delivery style had people

riveted in their seats. There were children and adults - a mixed bunch and some of

us at Perth City Farm learnt a great deal more about worms that morning.

Repurposing Pallets in our Tool Shed & the Junkadelic Workshop in our Art Room

How to use your Bins

This workshop demystified what goes in which bin! At Perth City Farm, we find how

people use our bins, a real challenge daily. There can never be enough of this

information as councils around the metropolitan area all have different systems and

different coloured bins- creating confusing messages to all of Perth!

Using Your Bins Correctly with Peg Davies from Mindarie Regional Council


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Street Theatre

Fluoro girl and battery girl kept the crowd amused by parading around the site

handing out small bags with information on battery recycling and informing event

goers about our recycling hub and the ability for them to bring their ‘hazardous

goods’ to Perth City Farm. Thanks to Mindarie Regional Council’s waste education

department for the costumes.

Our fantastic ‘Waste Theatre’ team with John Carey and Marcus Geisler

Environmental Marketplace

Special guest stalls were a terrific addition to our regular Saturday market

stallholders. Their presence gave us the opportunity to give our usual visitors and

new punters an opportunity to learn about diverting waste to landfill, using creativity,

enterprise and education.

The following stallholders brought a great depth to the Saturday Market scene:

- Paul Vardy Art - beautiful art created with drift wood and other found objects

that would usually find their way to landfill.

- Beads and Pods - coffee pods - billions of coffee pods end up in landfill

around the world. Beads and Pods reinvents this potential rubbish into

beautiful art including wearable pieces from dresses, brooches, necklaces

and pieces that will decorate the home etc. - diverting this waste that would

otherwise go to landfill

- Let’s Go Nature’al gives customers plastic-free alternatives such as palm

leaf tableware and stainless steel straws.

- Charley and James - talented jewellers that use unused vintage components

and reworked vintage treasures. Their small business demonstrates how we

can craft pre-loved items into beautiful creations - food for thought!

- Kooda - a new Perth based start-up company taking the hassle out of

composting. Buckets of food scraps are collected from inner-city homes and

businesses and turned into super-nutritious plant food. Carly Hardy is a

chemical engineer and single mother to three girls who wanted to do her part


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to help the environment. At our Event, Carly told her story to those who

stopped at her stall - she is an inspiration to others who may want to turn their

hand to enterprise whilst reducing waste to landfill.

- Mindarie Regional Council’s Waste Education Officer Peg Davies came with

a massive load of educational material, to promote to all those who came to

her stall, information on how to avoid, reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Special Guests for our ‘Environmental Marketplace’


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EVALUATION AND RESULTS

Data Collection

Perth City Farm decided the best plan of action to promote and advertise this new

service and our launch ceremony and workshops was a combination of social media

promotion through our facebook and instagram accounts (see appendix 1.1 & 1.2),

hard copy flyers and posters distributed by our volunteers at public events and by

City Farm Cafe (see appendix 2), and crucially - by speaking directly with the public

face-to-face.

Our event management and promotion team attended 5 different Saturday morning

markets to hand out flyers and speak to people who were shopping or visiting the

cafe. Our volunteer team who attended the Perth Garden Festival and our Twilight

Series Festivals also distributed the flyers and spoke to people, and our managing

director was featured on ABC 720 Perth Radio to discuss Perth City Farm and our

upcoming launch.

After the first market date, we started to survey attendees on their knowledge of our

event and the hub launch to measure the success of our promotional efforts and

gauge the reach of our online presence (see appendix 3 for copy of survey). We

monitored attendance at each of our waste workshops and opening ceremony on the

launch date in an effort to measure the interest of the general public in our waste

education side of the project.

Fay’s fantastic ‘Clothes to Bags’ workshop and the Koondarm Choir performance

Data Breakdown and Community Feedback

Week 1 of our Saturday morning promotion saw our event management team

engage over 100 people in conversations about our recycling hub and brief them on


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the upcoming workshop events; suitable for kids and adults of all ages. People were

very receptive to the conversations and happy to chat about waste and our new

facility.

Our Events team commenced the collection of data in week 2 of the promotional

period, engaging 90 people to complete a survey regarding their knowledge of our

upcoming launch event and workshops. Further to the 90 people surveyed, our team

distributed more flyers and spoke to more than 80 newcomers about the upcoming

launch event and facility.

This week also gave us the opportunity to quiz people on their current recycling

habits and if they already responsibly recycle their hazardous household waste.

56.7% of participants stated they already recycle these items correctly, while 35.6%

admitted they do not (see Fig. 1.1). These figures remained quite consistent

throughout the survey period with average proportions at 57% and 39% respectively

(see Fig. 1.2).

Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2


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The data set that appeared most promising showed that almost 77% of people

surveyed said they would use our recycling hub when it opened, while only 25.6% of

people actually knew about the facility and event by week 2 (see Fig. 2.1 and 2.2).

Figure 2.1

Figure 2.2

By the end of our Saturday morning promotion period, a total of 189 people had

agreed to complete our survey, with many more declining as they had already

completed a copy and were return visitors. On the final survey date alone, 150

people declined the survey as they had previously participated and already knew of

the Recycling Hub and upcoming launch event and educational workshops. The

demographics of our entire survey group can be seen in appendix 4.


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Our final survey date (week 5) showed a promising increase in the knowledge of our

recycling hub and workshops, with 90% of people aware, and a 3.4% increase (to

80.1%) in the number of people who said they will use the service (see Fig. 3.1 and

3.2).

Figure 3.1

Figure 3.2


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Unfortunately, it was hard to conclude what our most successful avenue of

promotion was for this project, as 44% of people declined to answer how they gained

knowledge of our launch and workshops. The most popular answer to this question

was unfortunately ‘other’ leaving us ‘in the dark’ to make things challenging! Face to

face promotion came in at 20%, next to our flyer with a reach of 12% (see Fig. 4).

Figure 4

Over the course of the entire survey and promotional process:

- More than 400 people were engaged at Perth City Farm,

- We had a potential reach of 400 families at the Perth Garden Festival

who visited our ‘activity station’ over the four-day event where our

poster was displayed and flyers present,

- We reached more than 200 at the Perth City Farm Twilight Festivals,

and;

- Estimate a reach thousands more via our 15 minute radio segment on

ABC 720 Perth Radio.

- Extended reach through event sharing with up to 15 other Facebook

pages

- Event listing on ‘Visit Perth City’ – City of Perth Website covering all

community and family friendly events in the central Perth area.

While our social media reach was also positive with:

- Our facebook posts for the launch had a reach of 11,236 people,

- We had 335 people engaged on the event page, and

- A massive total of 91 shares! One of our highest scoring facebook

posts from recent years.

- Our instagram event post had a further engagement of 100.


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It seemed there was no shortage of online interest in the event, but suspect weather

had a part to play in final attendance numbers.

\

Figure 5.1

We had very positive feedback in regards to the selection of workshops we chose to

deliver on the event day with a fair level of interest in all sessions. ‘Avoiding Waste in

your House’ with Peg Davies from Mindarie Regional Council and Earth Carers, and

‘Composting Masterclass’ with Thom Scott from Perth City Farm were standout

choices with the highest levels of interest at 39% and 37% respectively (see Fig.

5.1).

Figure 5.2


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When it came to the event day, our results changed completely! We had 33% of

visitors attend our kids workshop with Junkadelic, while just 5% attended the

‘Composting Masterclass’ that had previously seemed so popular! ‘Avoiding Waste

in your House’ also dropped in popularity; sitting with 7% attendance, while our

‘Cooking with Scraps’ workshop increased to 15%. See Fig. 5.2 for workshop

attendance levels in comparison to the perceived interest in Fig. 5.1.

In total we estimate over 300 people attended our Recycling Hub Launch Event

between 8am and 12noon.

Conclusion

In summary our Community Recycling Hub will be of value to not only the City of

Perth community, but to the larger population of the Perth metropolitan region who

visit our site for events, the cafe, tours and volunteering.

The location of this facility right in the heart of the City creates a huge advantage for

responsible waste disposal for dangerous goods and non-recyclable items as other

drop-off facilities are spread further afield.

The positioning on our site is key for maximum exposure of the education material

and awareness of this facility as many members of the public pass through this area

when visiting the project.

This facility will now be a key checkpoint for educational workshops and tours that

attract people of all ages from all over Perth.

Educational Signage in prominent foot-traffic area of Perth City Farm


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LESSONS LEARNT

Project Challenges

The greatest challenge for us at Perth City Farm was that we were not ready to

participate in this project when it was first submitted as we had recently had a full

change of Management. We understood the need for a hazardous goods depot and

that Perth City Farm was ideally placed to house such a facility particularly with the

number of visitors we have to our site every day.

On meeting with the Manager of Waste and the Senior Waste Management Officer

from the City of Perth we accepted the challenge to develop this facility, and soon

after this meeting a Murdoch University final year student in Environmental

Management and Sustainability Science commenced a placement at Perth City

Farm, enabling us to consider writing the grant.

We would like to thank the City of Perth and the Mindarie Regional Council for their

assistance in this process.

As a primarily volunteer organisation, the tasks we undertook were dependent on in-

kind contributions of our extremely capable volunteers. In the process of delivering

the project outlined in the grant, the project team changed personnel three times,

which therefore disrupted the effectiveness of proceeding along the timeline we

created for project completion. This coupled with the task of rebuilding Perth City

Farm as a vibrant community hub made delivering the project to the first end date

difficult. We would like to thank the Waste Authority staff for their kind consideration.

As well as the team that came together to complete the task.

Lessons Learnt

- The restricted timeframe for the delivery of the grant application compromised

the budgeting process causing us great angst.

- The delivery of education including signage information requires a longer time

than budgeted.

- Baby steps are okay in the bigger picture.

- Over-stretching volunteers never ends up well!

- Those that ‘dream’ the project need to carefully set out a project plan that is

easily translated into action steps.

Recommendations for Future Projects

- Give ourselves time to develop the project including planning the schedule of

events.

- Ensure that there are simple process and procedure for each segment.

- Consider the timespan and if it is appropriate to submit the grant in the first

place.


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- Perth City Farm is currently going through a visioning and planning process

which means that when we approach the waste authority for another grant we

will be well placed to do so.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to acknowledge the following organisations and personnel for their

consultation and funding throughout this grant process:

The Waste Authority Community Grant Officer Bianca King

Mindarie Regional Council - Peg Davies

City of Perth Waste Management Department - Kylie Howarth, Senior Waste

Management Officer

Hanson Heidelber Cement Group

Earth Carers - Karen Thompson

VARIATION AND EXTENSIONS

We were unable to complete the project in the initial proposed timeframe (ending

March 2017) and therefore requested a project extension, granted by the Waste

Authority, to June 1st 2017.

We received a generous donation from Hanson Heidelber Cement Group for the

initial concrete pad and therefore reallocated $1210 (ex. GST) from our ‘masonary

pad’ section of the budget to our ‘mobile units and construction materials’ section.

Our workshops and launch event deviated greatly in pricing from what was initially

perceived and we therefore requested leniency in apportioning of the $4720 event

budget allocation for the various workshops presented on the day. We received

approval to work within this total figure provided all expenses were relevant to the

original intent of a launch ceremony and at least 8 educational workshops.

Furthermore, Douglas Scott - the Perth City Farm Waste Hub Construction

Coordinator spoke to a Community Grants Officer of the Waste Authority Community

Grants Scheme on April 26th 2017 to clarify the individualised budget line items and

dollar amounts initially approved. We were advised all construction expenditure and

collection equipment must be relevant to the waste recycling hub project and aligned

with the intent of our initial project proposal.


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FUTURE PROJECTS

As a result of this waste project, Perth City Farm are keen to develop a number of

ideas and innovations to progress our waste journey and environmental impact in the

future. We want to construct a ‘Soil Centre’ to not only aid with the immense volume

of green and food waste generated on the site, from the Cafe, through our Urban

Orchid and Cultural Centre Wetlands partnerships, and brought in daily by the

general public; but also add another important component to our education

programs!


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APPENDIX

1.1a Facebook event listing

1.1b Facebook promotional post


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1.2 Instagram event release

2.1 Recycling Hub Launch Flyer & Poster


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2.2 Waste Workshop Schedule


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3. Survey questions


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4. Demographics of survey population

63%

35%

3%

Female Male No answer

Gender

4%

40%

18% 18%12%

6%2% 1%

18 to24

25 to34

35 to44

45 to54

55 to64

65 to74

75 orOlder

Other

Age

22%

4% 3% 2%4%

1%

60%

4%

East Perth Perth CBD West Perth Subiaco Northbridge Nedlands Other No answer

Suburb


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5. Recipes from Tim Kershaw for the ‘Cooking With Scraps’ Workshop

City Farm’s recycling Hub is open and ready to use!

Documents

Perth City Farm Community Recycling Hub · Perth City Farm Community Recycling Hub ... all those who visit our site ... polluted site is now a thriving community garden and has become