Ipswich City Council

Waste

National Recycling Week

Hosted by Planet Ark over 14 years, National Recycling Week aims to encourage people to consider the impact of the disposal of their possessions. For instance, did you know that when glass products are disposed of in our green-lidded refuse bin, they can take up to one million years to breakdown in landfill?

National Recycling Week is all about minimising waste to landfill by Reducing, Reusing and of course Recycling as much as we can.

This year, Ipswich City Council celebrated National Recycling Week (9^thNovember to Sunday 15^th November, 2009) by hosting the annual Trash into Treasure Art Competition, the Big Ipswich City Council Swap Party as well as a series of recycling exhibits throughout the city.

The Big Ipswich City Council Swap Party

On Saturday 14th November, the Ipswich Showgrounds Exhibits Display Pavilion was filled with residents eager to swap their unwanted household items for new treasures. The Big Ipswich City Council Swap Party was a free event which enabled participants to swap good quality items they no longer wanted, for items brought along by other people. This event was held to celebrate National Recycling Week and was a great way for our household items to be reused rather than disposed of. On the day, Ranger Stacey from Network Ten was there to help celebrate as well as a Reverse Garbage workshop for children, a series of environmental displays and free plants given away to Ipswich residents. This was the first event of its kind in Ipswich and was enjoyed by many keen swappers.

Trash into Treasure Art Competition

Over 500 decorative entries were received in Ipswich Waste Services Trash into Treasure" art competition for 2009. The competition was conducted for the third year in a row to celebrate National Recycling Week and to encourage children in Ipswich to turn rubbish into works of art. This year, children were asked to make a two dimensional Christmas collage decorated with rubbish and recyclable material.

The students have let their imaginations run wild and this year's entries have included a Christmas angel beautifully decorated with chocolate wrappers, Christmas tree collages made from egg cartons as well as many fabulous collages decorated with plastic bottle tops, Styrofoam, scrap paper and fabric.

The winners were Majenta Massey from Ally's Kindy at One Mile in the Childcare and Prep category, Ajaz Burton from Blackstone State School in the Grade One to Three category and Isaiah Covele from Westside Christian College in the Grade Six to Seven category.

Ezra Lualuaipou from Collingwood Park State School, Emily May from Blackstone State School and Kate Jackson from Westside Christian College were also awarded with Highly Commended prizes for their art works.

Winners and Highly Commended entrants received certificates as well as some fabulous eco prizes.

Waste-prizes

Terms and Conditions (PDF, 14 kb)

Find out about National Recycling Week activities held by Ipswich City Council in previous years.

National Recycling Week 2008

To celebrate National Recycling Week (10-16th November 2008) Ipswich Waste Services held a number of free events.

Reverse Garbage Workshop

Ipswich Waste Services hosted a FREE Reverse Garbage "Junk Sculpture" workshop for children to make sculptures and decorations from a variety of salvaged and recycled materials.

Reverse Garbage is a worker-run co-operative that collects unwanted discards from industry and businesses, diverting high quality materials from landfill to make them available at low cost to the community. They currently pick up materials from more than 200 suppliers around Brisbane. Reverse Garbage diverts around two tonnes of materials from landfill every week.

Trash into Treasure Competition

The Ipswich Waste Services "Trash into Treasure" competition was opened to all Ipswich childcare centres and schools as well as community groups and individuals.

Entrants were asked to simply design and make a Christmas decoration from rubbish and recyclable materials.

Great prizes were available! All prizes were eco-friendly and many were made from recycled or reused materials. Click on the category to view the prizes: Recycled Rudolph

Additional Information

Childcare Information (PDF, 1.3 mb)

School Information (PDF, 1.4 mb)

Community Information (PDF, 689 kb)

Terms And Conditions For National Reycling Week Competition (PDF, 89 kb)

National Recycling Week 2007

To celebrate National Recycling Week 2007 (5th - 11th November), Ipswich Waste Services held a competition for primary school children. To enter, children were to design and make a Christmas decoration made from recyclable/sustainable materials.

The competition, proudly sponsored by XS Project Foundation attracted more than 50 entries from primary schools throughout Ipswich.

The winners were:

Prep: Lachlan Pyke (Rosewood State School)
Grade 1-3: Chloe DeGlas (Ipswich West State School)
Grade 4 & 5: Brittney Wilson (Grandchester State School)
Grade 6 & 7: Caitlan Eason (Ipswich North State School)

A highly commended was awarded to Declan Tallent from Springfield Lakes State School.

All winners received individual prizes courtesy of XS Project Foundation, which are hand crafted from non-recyclable plastic packaging waste materials which would otherwise end up in landfill. The prizes, which ranged from pencil cases and lunch bags to homework folders and satchel bags were presented to the winners at their school assemblies by their divisional councillor.

Each of the winners' schools also received a set of five environmental education books.

All participants received a participation certificate and a mini-bin courtesy of Ipswich Waste Services.

Winners' Entries

Lachlan Pyke (prep) made a snow cone shaker from a reused empty peanut paste jar, an old plastic toy, glitter and water collected from recent rainfall;

Chloe DeGlas (Grade 1) made a Christmas tree with decorations from a Yellow Pages cover, old steel can, twigs from the garden, advertising mail and an egg carton;

Brittney Wilson (Grade 4) made a Christmas angel from reused office paper, magazines, decorated with aluminium foil, Old Man's Beard (a plant) and coloured plastic beads;