If your bread comes in a plastic bag fixed with a plastic tag, you can recycle both. Actually all three! The bag, the tag and the bread crusts. The bag goes to your local supermarket soft plastic collection with all your other soft plastics, where it is collected by REDcycle. The bread crusts go into your freezer, where you collect them in one of your plastic bags until you need breadcrumbs, at which point you whiz them in the food processor for instant crumbs. The tags can either be mailed to Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs or you can find your local collector and either email or call them for drop off.
Since setting up in Australia late in 2018, Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs has recycled 1,136kg of bread tags in Australia. The bread tags are processed by Transmutation , a craft plastic recycling operation based in Robe, SA. They buy the tags and turn them into bowls and coasters in a range of colours.
This small organisation collects bread tags nationally and recycles these within Australia. The money raised is used to fund wheelchairs for the needy in South Africa and the Aussie branch has so far provided 4 wheelchairs to those in need in South Africa. (In South Africa, there is very little disability support, so it is difficult for people who cannot afford a wheelchair to get one. This leaves the disabled poor in South Africa particularly vulnerable.)On their new Aussie website, you can find a wealth of information including a gallery of pictures of both the wheelchair recipients and their community of collectors and signage for collectors to use.
During the coronavirus pandemic, many of the Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs collection points such as community centres, schools and churches are closed, although most of those based at businesses are still open. Collectors are encouraged to hold on to their tags for now or post them to them at P.O. Box 1164, Kensington Gardens, SA 5068.
Jenny from Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs has this recycling tip: NEVER SAY “IT’S NOT WORTH RECYCLING THIS.” ALL THE SMALL ITEMS YOU RECYCLE ADD UP TO A HUGE QUANTITY OVER TIME. SO MANY PEOPLE SAY TO ME “BUT I DON’T EAT MUCH BREAD.” AND YET WE HAVE RECYCLED MORE THAN A TONNE OF BREAD TAGS IN JUST OVER A YEAR!
It’s also testament to the amazing power of community – if enough people make a small contribution, the end result is significant. Small changes do add up, so if you decide to send one less type of waste to landfill each month, before you know it you’ll hardly ever be putting out your landfill bin!