If social media were the barometer, corflutes would’ve been a strong contender for the biggest political issue of the 2020 ACT Legislative Assembly election.
Throughout the campaign, online notice boards lit up with comments from a frustrated electorate, unhappy with placement, visual pollution and waste.
The Belco Party even reached out to the electorate, asking them to stop “constant and wilful damage” of their corflute advertising signs.
But there is some light at the end of the tunnel for detractors of the corflutes in the progressive ACT electorate, whose votes spoke to a commitment to environmental sustainability.
From today, the parties – who should have collected their signs within 48 hours of the close of polling booths – are able to drop them at one of two free drop-off points for a recycling trial.
The trial will run until June 2021 and allow for free drop-off at signposted points at:
- Mitchell Resource Management Centre, Flemington Road, Mitchell, and
- Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre,Mugga Lane, Symonston.
ACT NoWaste executive branch manager Anthony Haraldson said popular corflute material was relatively cheap and durable but could not be recycled in the kerbside recycling yellow‑lid bin process.
“As there have been no local recycling options, they get repurposed or go to waste in landfill,” he said.
“We are pleased to have partnered with Australian company Corex which accepts used corflute materials and reprocesses them back into corflute sheets at their Melbourne facility.
“Care will need to be taken to remove contamination such as paper, glue, wood, metal and plastic fixings from the corflute signs to enable them to be recycled.
“The ACT Government is pleased to be able to introduce an avenue for ACT businesses and government agencies to recycle their signage and reduce the amount sent to landfill.
“The trial will support resource recovery of what has traditionally been considered a problematic material and, if successful, the ACT Government will consider options to introduce the service on a longer-term basis.”
In the six weeks prior to election day, more than 2,100 signs were removed and retained by City Services rangers for a variety of reasons – the main being the fallen signs effectively become litter.
Signs removed and retained by City Services rangers will be held for seven days following a notice of seizure being issued to the owner; uncollected corflutes will be recycled.
