The Shire of Nillumbik and the Cities of Darebin and Whittlesea have undertaken a regional public place recycling program at Northern Football League football grounds. Their ‘Clean Up Our Game’ project involved the installation of infrastructure, signage and recycling bins in addition to waste education. EnviroCom was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the project and to inform future actions.

Preliminary waste audits in eight sporting grounds indicated the potential of the project to divert a significant percentage of recyclables from landfill. After three months a secondary waste audit showed all grounds to have improved in corrected diversion and resource recovery rates, with resource recovery increasing by 19.19% by weight and 24.18% by volume. This is a highly pleasing result and through strategies such as positioning waste and recycling bins in pairs, and with reinforced education the ‘Clean Up Our Game’ project is expected to continue to improve recovery.