The social, economic and environmental impacts of illegal and unintentional dumping at charities are substantial.

NACRO members are working hard to offset these impacts with reuse, recycling and resource recovery initiatives, but they need additional support from Federal and State Governments to scale these impacts and to:

• To acknowledge the fact that waste is illegal dumped on charities.
• To assist charities with the unfair financial burden of waste management costs.
• To enable the welfare programs that charities deliver in their state.
• To support the virtuous partnership between State Governments and charities in delivering services to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.
• To align with public opinion in not hampering the work of charities.
• To promote a good news story – people want charities to succeed.

Working Groups between NACRO and State Governments have identified three critical interventions that address illegal and unintentional dumping, and improve the capacity of charities to scale their impact with better reuse, recycling and resource recovery. These are:

Infrastructure Investment to Deter Illegal Dumping

• To establish a grants program to co-fund interventions that prevent illegal dumping and the deposit of items that cannot be resold.

Reuse, Recycling and Resource Recovery Improvement Program

• To provide support to the charitable sector to increase resource recovery and reuse, while reducing waste management costs.

Consumer Education and Communications

• To develop consistent, evidence-based education/communication campaigns to promote responsible donating behaviours.

NACRO looks forward to collaborating with Governments on pro-active solutions and interventions designed to maximise the social and environmental benefits to Australia and to maximise the biggest economic return to communities that only charitable recycling organisations are set up to deliver through real triple bottom line impacts.