In a corporation the size of Australia Post, an active recycling program can have an enormous and positive effect on the environment. Both our national waste management contract with Visy and a comprehensive computer recycling program are aimed at keeping our landfill waste to a minimum. In 2005/06 we sent nearly 9,000 obsolete 9-inch computer monitors for recycling, and almost 90 per cent of the components were able to be recycled into other manufactured products.

The recycled content of our packaging materials has increased since last year and is now at 37 per cent across our range of products. The recyclability of the total weight of packaging materials has also increased to 80 per cent across the range (70 per cent last year).*

Australia Post has been a member of the National Packaging Covenant since 2002. To conform with the recently revised Packaging Covenant, we have developed a three-year action plan to continue to improve our practices in this area.

In 2005/06, Australia Post extended its Winepak range by introducing two- and three-bottle cardboard packs. Multi-use carry bags are also now available at many of our PostShops, to provide customers with an alternative to plastic shopping bags.

Our project to recycle international mail bags, which we instigated last year, has continued successfully. The bags are baled up at Brunswick Industries, a Victorian workshop that provides employment for 52 disabled people, and the bales are sold on for recycling into shopping bags. The money made from the sale of the bags this year has been donated to charity.

During the year we entered into a national facilities cleaning contract that requires the use of biodegradable and environmentally friendly cleaning products.

* Note: These figures include only products specific to Australia Post, such as the Postpak range. Under the revised Covenant Agreement, next year’s figures will also include the packaging of Australia Post branded products, such as computer peripherals.