Mid Macquarie Landcare

Engaging the Community in the War on Waste

Plastic Free July's 2025 theme: Food Packaging addressed in Landcare/ Dubbo Regional Council partnership.

Self sustenance - LEP23 - 005_RLC

The issue

As part of the Mid Macquarie Landcare Strategic Plan, our group aims to encourage the community to adopt sustainable lifestyle principles around:

Waste          Self sufficiency          Energy and          Water use efficiency.

For every 1 bin-full of waste we generate, 70 bin-fulls are generated upstream in creating it!! That means it’s important to reduce waste through good purchasing practices.

This has local relevance with the upcoming closure of the Wellington landfill - meaning that all waste generated in our local community, will need to be transported to landfills in Dubbo or further afield, putting pressure on local roads, safety and other flow-on impacts.

The solution

We partnered with Dubbo Regional Council to deliver a Plastic Free July campaign that encouraged the community to make good choices around food packaging - with a focus on disposable coffee cups.

15 local coffee shops in Dubbo and Wellington committed to offering a small discount on customer drinks if "chose to refuse" disposable cups and BYO keep cup during the month of July and we ran a cross-promoted marketing campaign around the deal. We also had specially branded Keep Cups available for purchase during the month.

In addition to this, we ran a Waste2Art workshop during the school holidays to create a 'call-to-action' posing sculpture.

The Waste Warrior was created using items of food packaging collected in the local Wellington community in the leadup to the workshop (coffee cups, straws, tetra packs, cardboard, bottle caps etc) and has been touring around coffee shops since his creation encouraging locals to rethink their food packaging choices.

The impact

  • 15 local coffee shops actively promoting use of Keep Cups during Plastic Free July
  • 10 local students involved in Waste2Art workshop are more informed about the negative impacts of plastic in the environment and how our choices can influence this
  • media campaign that directly reached 4552 via Mid Macquarie Landcares Facebook page plus readership of the Wellington District Leader.

In addition, the Waste Warrior was invited to join the regional Waste2Art exhibition were he will be on display from Sept 27 - Oct 29.

From little things, big things grow! Waste education will be an ongoing challenge for our organisation.

Author: Danielle Littlewood

Key facts

  • Waste is an ongoing issue in our regional communities.
  • Plastic Free July is a great platform to engage people in the war on waste.
  • Partnering with Council leverages resources and engagement further.
  • Visual art call-to-action is an effective and fun way to encourage the community to choose to refuse single use plastics.

Project Partners