For the last five years, BioPak have donated tens of thousands of redundant stock BioCups to the Byron Schoolies Safety Response to use in our Hydration Station at the Schoolies HUB. It may sound fancy, but essentially this is a big water tank that the Schoolies HUB Volunteers keep topped up daily, so that they can keep all the young Schoolies visitors hydrated, with free water dispensed around the clock. There is signage on the water tank letting the Schoolies know what happens to these cups and they happily place them in the special ‘recycling’ bins in the HUB, only used for these water cups, often telling the HUB Volunteers that they think this is a great recycling idea. The HUB Volunteers then carefully, stack and repack the used cups back into boxes, which at the end of Schoolies each year, are delivered to the Byron Bay Herb Nursery at Sunrise.

These cups are destined for the Cup of Life project, whereby they will have fruit-tree seedlings planted in them, such as Davidson plums, papaya, kang kong, midyim berries and more, by the workers engaged in the nursery’s disabled employment program. As well as being sold at the Byron Bay Herb Nursery, they are also available for sale in ‘Earth Stations’ from local nurseries, hardware stores, health food shops and independent supermarkets and green grocers around the Northern Rivers.

This year the Schoolies HUB managed to salvage nearly 8,000 of their Hydration Station used BioPak water cups, which were delivered out to the Byron Bay Herb Nursery, much to the delight of nursery manager Nick Thom, who told Schoolies HUB, that “The Schoolies HUB cups are the very best donation the nursery gets.” With these cups having only been used for water, they are pristine-clean to use to plant the fruit-tree seedlings in.

When we first started the Schoolies HUB seven years ago, the one thing that concerned us, was that we were using plastic cups, that had been donated by local hotels. I thought there had to be a better way and contacted BioPak, who immediately offered to donate cups for us to use each year. This has been a truly successful recycling story, using cups that were essentially redundant, and then recycling them into a great local program.

In 2015 BioPak donated 24,000 cups to the Schoolies HUB. Some of the remaining cups will be donated to the Byron Youth Activities Centre to use in their programs throughout the year, then once again, the remainder will be used in the Schoolies HUB in 2016.

Nicqui Yazdi, Coordinator
Byron Schoolies Safety Response & the Byron Schoolies HUB
M: 0402 013 177
E: nicquiyazdi@yahoo.com.au

Photos:
Schoolies HUB Volunteers on the final day of the Schoolies HUB
Byron Bay Herb Nursery Manager Nick Thom
Recycled Schoolies HUB cups with Papaya seedlings at the Byron Bay Herb Nursery
Schoolies with BioPak cup at Hydration Station