Aiming towards a zero waste brewery Our two breweries in Byron and Murwillumbah have seen considerable growth over the past 18 months and as we continue to produce more beer than ever before our sustainable initiatives are front of mind. We celebrate the idea that this is the only planet with beer, a solid reason […]
Our two breweries in Byron and Murwillumbah have seen considerable growth over the past 18 months and as we continue to produce more beer than ever before our sustainable initiatives are front of mind.
We celebrate the idea that this is the only planet with beer, a solid reason and one of many to protect and preserve the beautiful environment that we live and work in day to day. As part of our role as the local brewer in our community we must constantly be looking for innovative ways to ensure our practices are sustainable and that we will see generations in the future enjoying our beers in an environment that has been looked after.
Green Feet is a company-wide initiative, a couple of years old that is focused on minimising our footprint. We’re stoked to announce its next step… the installation and operation of plastic baler, which is effectively recycling and reducing our contribution to landfill at the Murwillumbah site.
After being awarded the NSW state’s first rebate for a baler through the help of a collective from the Northern Rivers called Northeast Waste, we immediately set about locally sourcing a twin chamber baler.
As a bit of a background, waste, especially plastic takes up a lot of space contributing to landfill and also carbon emissions by the increased number of times a garbage truck needs to go to and from the tip.
Our sustainability coordinator Tom O’Reilly makes the point, “[…] landfill is a hole somewhere full of our rubbish. It doesn’t just disappear. If we don’t change our doings we’ll end up with more holes of rubbish and less habitat and land to grow food.”
Compressing the waste minimises the space it would usually require and this is achieved through using a baler. However, Instead of sending it to the dump, we truck it up to Plastics Worldwide, a recycling merchant on the Gold Coast.
The addition of the baler to the Murbah site has meant we now recycle 97% of our waste making a realised difference to our contribution to landfill.
“At the start of this project I wouldn’t have expected that we’d get so close to the prospect of becoming a zero waste brewery.”
That for us is just as important as brewing beer that’s good to drink.
