Queensland Children's Hospital (QCH) is a trailblazer for the circular economy diverting over 500,000 kilograms of health care waste through its 41 recycling streams, including its new battery stewardship partnership, blister pack recycling and pallet recycling programs.

Its 334 Green team members foster a sustainable culture across the entire workforce of 5,500 to empower each individual to make change. As a result QCH has been able to remove over 1 million pieces of unnecessary single use plastic from their health care service, reduced their paper usage by 2.35 million pieces of paper (saving 300 trees in 2023), compost 85% of its food waste and divert 561 kg of food into Oz Harvest’s food rescue program.

The hospital also recycles on average 36,000 containers per year through Containers for Change and the revenue raises funds their hospital garden therapy program for children.

Their mission to reduce waste goes beyond Australian borders though. Recently QCH donated two retired heart lung machines to the Fiji Children's Hospital to provide open heart surgery for children with congenital heart failure. 25 staff members of the QCH Critical Care team volunteered their time to fly over to Fiji to operate on 18 local children and teach the locals to use the equipment.

QCH also partners with Ecomarines, Substation 33, Rotary, Save our Supplies, Reverse Garbage, National Battery Stewardship Council, Pharmacycle and local vets and animal charities to utilise the waste generated by their hospital to support local charities, community groups and international aid.

Do-Op Shop is not your average thrift store - they are doing everything possible to make thrifting "cool" again and ensure that preloved high-quality clothing and goods stay circular.

Do-Op Shop also diverts clothing and textiles from landfill by running free or low-cost workshops on how to upcycle clothing. Any unsaleable donations that can’t be recycled or upcycled are donated to rag companies. They have also invested in tag and test machines so they can sell electrical items safely.

Along with creating a strong community environment to combat social isolation, their three shops have raised $85,000 in the last three years to help other local charities in need. Recently they donated $15,000 to Ocean Crusaders so they could do a deep clean of the Brisbane River.

Rocks Community Garden (RCG) and its 70 members are committed to their zero-waste policy and work tirelessly to maintain five separate worm farms, 10 individual compost bins and mulch five large wooden compost bays weekly.

Since implementing their zero-waste policy all their green waste is recycled…previously their garden waste would fill a skip bin weekly.

When the members aren’t gardening, they’re recycling with some rescuing plastic buckets thrown out weekly in a nearby industrial estate to be used for cuttings to give away to visitors, while others collect food scraps and coffee grounds from a local cafe to prevent it from going to landfill.

RCG is also home to a hub of recycled barrels to collect a huge range of recyclable materials from glass bottles, containers, newspaper and shredded paper to used pots and kids' toys.  The garden has also become a hub for giving away household items…anything from prams, mirrors and bookcases to boxes of nails and screws, eskies and plants!

One member collects food scraps and coffee grounds from a local cafe to prevent it from going to landfill. Another rescues food safe plastic buckets thrown out weekly in a nearby industrial estate and these are used for housing cuttings to give away to garden visitors. Free seeds are also given away to encourage people to grow their own gardens.

76-year-old, Shirley Sheftz, is the recycling Queen at Skyring Apartments in Teneriffe! She spends hours every day working with her apartment block to ensure nothing goes to waste!

Clothes and household items are salvaged and donated to Silky Oaks Op shop, toiletries are given to New Farm Community Centre for those sleeping rough, furniture is taken to Endeavour at the tip, technical equipment is recycled at Apple Carindale, spectacles are delivered to The Eye Man in Newstead who in turn donates to the Lions Club, stationery is given to Gan Gani Kindy, coffee trays returned to Hallowed Ground Coffee Shop, wine shopping bags to Wine Emporium, cleaning supplies to Brisbane Hebrew Congregation and arts and crafts to a craft group.

Every fortnight with the help of her 82-year-old husband, Pepsi, she loads the trailer up with all the items to be delivered to all the various locations, including the 70,000 containers she’s recycled in the last financial year through Containers for Change.

The Love Me Again Markets are at the forefront of sustainable fashion in Brisbane, fostering circular fashion practices through their markets held every Sunday in Milton and Stafford, and once a month in Hamilton. On average, around 1250 preloved items are re-homed each weekend!

The market founders are also committed to educating their circular fashion community on the benefits of choosing to reuse through their social channels with over 39,000 followers, participating in sustainable fashion panels and hosting film nights of the documentary ‘Fashion Reimagined’, an educational film that highlights the exploits of garment workers in underdeveloped countries and the environmental impacts of fast fashion.

They also give back to local community groups and charities, raising funds through their dedicated 'Charity Rack' which sells donated clothing from prior markets for BeyondDV, a local domestic violence charity. Since 2020, their events supporting Women’s Legal Service Qld and BeyondDV have raised an estimated $80,000.

Heritage Lanes (HL) is the first to achieve a 6-star green star rating, which is a new world-leading sustainability benchmark from the Green Building Council of Australia.

Sustainable initiatives are at the core of Heritage Lanes; starting with its 18 waste streams. Sorting occurs each night by hand, with reporting from their current waste partner tracking diversion from landfill at 81% for the month of June.

In 2024 the Building Management team launched their Precinct Keep Cup program, a first for a Brisbane office precinct. Over 4,000 reusable cups are currently in circulation, delivered to retail coffee operators each day and returned for washing onsite each evening. In the first three months of operation, over 20,000 cups have been diverted from landfill.

HL was also the first to invest in a milk bottle (HDPE) shredder in Australia, to enhance recycling and reduce transport costs.

In the past financial year, its Containers for Change program has recycled over 56,000 cans, generating more than $5,600 for local organisations.

Little Birdie Hair Co is committed to implementing waste reduction strategies and recycling programs into its salons across Brisbane.

As part of their eco-ethos they have established a ShareWaste composting facility which is open to the community to use, and in 2024 they installed a worm farm to turn food scraps into fertiliser.

Their salons exclusively use recycled foil, and they take all used hair foil to their local scrap metal yard for repurposing, diverting approximately 36 kilometres of foil from landfill in the past financial year alone. Even their hair clippings are repurposed, donating cut hair to local community gardens.

Their commitment to recycling extends to their retail space, offering clients the opportunity to refill empty bottles at a discounted price.

In partnership with Carbon Positive Australia, they plant four native Australian trees for every client service and earlier this year, they installed solar panels on their salon, to enable them to achieve carbon-negative status.

Their goal extends beyond running an eco-friendly business though; they engage and educate their community on sustainability through blog posts, their podcast "The Eco Pod," and social media channels which have a collective following of over 10,000.

Boe Design is Brisbane’s first micro-plastic recycler, turning plastic bottle caps into products of enduring value through a closed loop recycling process at their workshop in Albion.

Currently only 13% of Australian plastic is recycled so they are on a mission to better those statistics, one lid a time, while educating the community, businesses and schools on bottle top recycling through their social media channels, tours, educational workshops and innovative voting frames.

In the last financial year they have diverted more than 120kg of plastic bottle caps from landfill, collecting them from the Recycling Hills District community group, My Green Stuff store, Yeerongpilly Containers for Change and Albion Marketplace.

They have also established a weekly rubbish club to encourage groups to walk through Fortitude Valley, collect rubbish while making new friends in the process.

The Wynnum State School Parents and Citizens Association is committed to fostering sustainability through a range of green practices throughout the school.

Their sustainability journey has included going paperless, reducing plastic packaging, implementing Containers for Change recycling and the creation of a school chicken coop, built during a working bee last year. Eggs produced by the chickens are donated to their tuck shop, creating a closed-loop system that benefits the school community.

The P&C has also overseen the establishment of worm farms maintained by teachers and students. Lunch scraps are fed to the worms with the worm castings used as fertiliser.

They are also pioneering the use of “Loose Parts” in play, utilising repurposed items like pallets, old boats, empty cable drums, car tyres, and preloved items from the community, such as milk crates, baking utensils to provide a vibrant and imaginative play space for students while reducing the school’s environmental footprint.

The P&C is currently creating an Adventure Play Area made from recycled and repurposed materials with the help of school staff, 650 students, their families and the wider community. This ‘new’ play area will transform a previously unused green space into an active, sustainable environment for their students and is set to open officially in Term 4.

The Brisbane South Toy Library redirects tonnes of toys from being discarded to landfill by accepting pre-loved toys to be sorted, checked and then rehomed, reloved, replayed or, if beyond any of those options, sent to a recycling centre.

Over the past 12 months, their team of 55 volunteers have processed over 1.5 tonnes of donated toys. Many have found a new home in the toy library where they can be shared with families for years to come. They have also redirected over 20kg of batteries from landfill by removing them from toys and sending them to official recycling centres.

Tarragindi War Memorial Kindergarten is a community leader in sustainable practices, educating the children and in turn their families about reuse and recycling practices to implement within their homes.

Being a community kindy they encourage donations of any kind, in particular, cardboard, bottle tops, wood, egg cartons, old cooking utensils and even clothes or materials. They only purchase essential items and opt for items that are recycled or environmentally friendly, often visiting recycle centres before purchasing new. When they need to dispose of something they place the items on Facebook Marketplace to try and rehome items instead of sending them to landfill.

The Kindy has a worm farm and compost bin for food scraps, coffee grounds, cardboard and leaf foliage, and collects containers in partnership with families and staff to help fundraise for further sustainable resources such as an extra worm farm.

They teach the children to care for the environment, through regularly collecting rubbish during their Bush Kindy Program and by participating in the annual Clean Up Australia Day.

Recently a member of the local community donated a street library to be stationed just outside the gate where anyone can donate and reuse preloved books.

Queensland Children's Hospital (QCH) is a trailblazer for the circular economy diverting over 500,000 kilograms of health care waste through its 41 recycling streams, including its new battery stewardship partnership, blister pack recycling and pallet recycling programs.

Its 334 Green team members foster a sustainable culture across the entire workforce of 5,500 to empower each individual to make change. As a result QCH has been able to remove over 1 million pieces of unnecessary single use plastic from their health care service, reduced their paper usage by 2.35 million pieces of paper (saving 300 trees in 2023), compost 85% of its food waste and divert 561 kg of food into Oz Harvest’s food rescue program.

The hospital also recycles on average 36,000 containers per year through Containers for Change and the revenue raises funds their hospital garden therapy program for children.

Their mission to reduce waste goes beyond Australian borders though. Recently QCH donated two retired heart lung machines to the Fiji Children's Hospital to provide open heart surgery for children with congenital heart failure. 25 staff members of the QCH Critical Care team volunteered their time to fly over to Fiji to operate on 18 local children and teach the locals to use the equipment.

QCH also partners with Ecomarines, Substation 33, Rotary, Save our Supplies, Reverse Garbage, National Battery Stewardship Council, Pharmacycle and local vets and animal charities to utilise the waste generated by their hospital to support local charities, community groups and international aid.