Home collection service RecycleSmart is going national in its bid to help keep valuable resources in circulation.
During the past four years the Uber of waste has changed the way households and businesses recycle.
It’s grown from partnering with a dozen councils in New South Wales, providing an on-demand, free pick-up recycling service to residents, to become a powerhouse in recycling tricky-to-handle items. Along the way it’s established an assortment of business partnerships.
In 2023, the start-up introduced its Power Pick-up service across Melbourne and Brisbane. In March it will take on Newcastle, Gold Coast and Byron Bay, with plans to expand into Adelaide later in 2024. While it may seem like a rapid growth in reach, it’s the result of a lot of determination, says Giorgio Baracchi, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder.
“It seems quite quick, and we’re pleased with how far we’ve come,” Giorgio says. “It’s been hard work, but I think we’ve found a spot in the market that was empty. We’re providing that last mile – the logistics – for hard-to-recycle items.
“We also facilitate the return of items for people. From their house to where it needs to go.”
RecycleSmart’s mission is to accelerate Australia’s transition to a circular economy by making recycling easy and accessible for everyone.
Its Power Pick-up service has been the backbone of the company’s success, providing a channel for residents to recycle items that would otherwise not have an option, right from their doorstep.
The home collections were always targeted at “tricky” items. The list of what can be collected is much longer now, says Giorgio. For example, items added this year were all types of shoes, cookware, plastic bread tags, pillows and uniforms. Blister packs are currently the second biggest item collected in terms of numbers and the list continues to grow, with plans to move into ‘plus size’ items including furniture.
For everything that is collected there is a partnership with a company that provides a solution for that waste stream.
In January 2023, RecycleSmart teamed up with APR Plastics to bring soft plastics recycling back to residents. The plastics collected are shredded and fed into a machine that uses pyrolysis (elevated temperatures with no oxygen) to create an oil that will be on-sold to VIVA ENERGY to be turned into flexible plastics again.
It has also partnered with Upcycle4Better, an international textile end-of-use organisation, to, recycle, reprocess, and repair textiles and shoes in unwearable condition.
Even household “misfits” have an end use. In 2021, RecycleSmart began collecting aluminium coffee capsules to be recycled through a specialist facility in Nowra, New South Wales. In 2023, it partnered with Sims Metal to recycle cookware collected from residents’ doorsteps, and polystyrene is transformed into raw material that can be used to make park benches, skirting boards and even bee hives through a partnership with Styrocycle.
Business also sees the benefit and the power of the recycling pick-up service. Since RecycleSmart expanded its Power Pickup service to businesses, more than 600 have expressed interest not only to organise a collection from their facility or head office, but also to offer a recycling solution to their customers.
Giorgio says that as the list of items collected is evolving, so too has RecycleSmart’s objective, in line with Australia’s transition to a circular economy.
“Our focus for the future is to place more emphasis on returning and reusing items,” he says. “We help households and businesses take small, smart steps in the right direction and keep valuable resources in circulation. We’re facilitating the return of items to where they need to go so that they can be reused again.”
For more information, visit: www.recyclesmart.com
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