Project: Stopping Gosnells Men from Being Wasters€¦ · Gosnells Community Men’s Shed Inc...

Gosnells Community Men’s Shed Inc

Project Evaluation Report - C1372 Waste Authority, Community Grants Scheme

This publication has been produced through a grant project funded by the Waste Authority. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Waste

Authority or Government of Western Australia, which may not be held responsible for the accuracy of information provided, nor is it liable for any and all outcomes from the use of this information.

Project: Stopping Gosnells Men from Being Wasters

About our Organisation

Gosnells Community Men’s Shed is a community based Not for Profit organisation based in

Gosnells and is a member of the Australian Men’s Shed Association and the West Australian

Men’s Shed Association. Our current membership is in excess of 175, and we have

experienced incredible growth in member numbers since our inception in 2012. The main

focus of our organisation is in relation to Men’s Health and wellbeing, as men can often find

themselves at a “loose end” when they retire or if they do not have a regular

activity/occupation to keep them socially active. Our Men’s Shed runs a number of

activities for members, and recycling and gardening have proven to be very popular projects

for our members to participate in.

About Our Project – Stopping Gosnells Men from Being Wasters

Stated objective of the project – “Our Men’s Shed will provide the catalyst for a Community

Education Programme that will inform and empower our community to enjoy a more

sustainable lifestyle. Our members have a number of ideas for recycling and reusing

donated items, and our gardening team are keen to set up a composting facility within our

Community Garden”

Our objectives in setting up this project included a number of ideas that came from our

members, to enable our community to participate in reducing waste and recycling materials

that would otherwise be dumped as waste. Some of the materials we saw an opportunity

to recycle included non returnable pallets; kitchen scraps; garden pruning’s; old car and

truck batteries; old household batteries; cigarette butts; toothpaste tubes and soap

dispenser pumps. In addition, we also saw an opportunity to recycle old tools that have

been donated to our Community from members of the public, and to refurbish/restore the

items before either putting them to use within our workshop or to re-sell through Rotary

Bring N Buy. Unfortunately some of the tools that were donated were deemed unable to be

refurbished due to safety issues, and these were then recycled as scrap wherever possible.



Items purchased with the Grant Funds

1. Boxtop Trailer - to enable us to collect donated items and for transporting recycled

materials.

2. Wheelie Bins – for collecting and sorting recyclable materials.

3. Yardeco 2000 Mulcher – for shredding garden waste to create mulch and/or for breaking

down waste for use in our compost bins.

4. Compost Bins – for composting garden/kitchen waste, which is then used in our

Community Garden.

5. Metal Detector – this is used to enable us to scan recycled timber for metal/nails etc., so

that these can be removed prior to machining the timber.

6. Electric Wheelbarrow – this assists our members in moving the compost material and

other recyclable items around on our site which has quite a sloping terrain.

7. Metal cladding for covering in a freestanding canopy, to enable us to store recycled

timber and steel out of the weather.

Our Recycling/Re-use Activities.

1. Fluorescent light tubes and globes. These have been collected from within our

Community, and then delivered to the Gosnells Council depot where there is a collection

facility for recycling these.

2. Kitchen Waste (Vegetable/Fruit scraps). Our Community were issued with (recycled)

containers to collect their kitchen scraps, so that these can be brought to our Men’s

Shed and used in the feeding of our worm farms and in composting. This has been very

successful, with about 15 of our members contributing kitchen waste on a regular basis.

3. Worm Farms. Another success story with several members taking an active role in

maintaining the worm farms each day or as required. A by-product of the worm farms is

the liquid that is drained off from the containers every few days, and which we have

been selling to members at $1 per 2 litres (in recycled milk/cordial containers).



Members either take this home for use on their home gardens, whilst some of this is

used in our own Community Garden.

4. Community Gardens. Although already established prior to receiving this grant, our

Community Gardens have expanded due to the additional resources available through

items purchased with the grant funds. This includes having the ability to mulch garden

pruning’s; compost waste materials; worm castings and worm wee from worm farms.

Our gardens are thriving, and many more members have taken an active interest in this

activity.

5. Raised Garden Beds. These have been made up by our members from donated/recycled

materials including pine, steel and metal sheeting.

6. Car and Truck Batteries. We have been collecting old car and truck batteries which we

then donate to the Girl Guides, who are able to sell these for scrap, with the money

generated assisting them in their restoration of their Community Property in York (WA).

Over the past year we have collected 628 of these items for the Girl Guides.

7. Household Batteries. A collection point has been set up on our premises for our

Community to deposit their old dry cell batteries. These are then collected by the

Gosnells Council for recycling. A quantity of these batteries is collected every few weeks

by Council.

8. Collection of non returnable wooden pallets. These are de-nailed, and salvageable

material is then recovered for use in our wood workshop.

9. Wood shavings/sawdust from our wood workshop operations are used in the making of

compost.

10. We receive steel square tubing that has previously been part of Sugar Bales, and this is

then stored for use in our metal workshop. Some of this metal tubing has also been

used in the manufacture of our raised garden beds, as well as making up racking for

storage.



11. Aluminium Can Collection point – our Community members have been active in bringing

aluminium cans to our collection point for recycling. These are now being compressed

using a can crusher, and are periodically taken for recycling where we receive 85c per kg

which assists our fundraising to cover our operating costs.

12. Extruded Aluminium – this is another initiative by our members, and involves

dismantling items made of this material so that it can be sold. Again this assists in our

fundraising to cover our operating costs. We calculate that we have been collecting

25kg of this material every 6 weeks. The main source of the material is old aluminium

screen/security doors.

13. Wire Stripping – we were fortunate to be approached by an electrical company to see if

we would be interested in recycling off cut lengths of electrical cabling to recover the

materials. This turned out to be a very popular activity amongst a number of our

members, and we have recovered approx 3,000 kg of metals for recycling from this

activity.

14. Bread and Cakes – we have been receiving donated day old bread and cakes from some

high profile bakery chains, which we offer to our members and what is left over is then

given to members who have chickens at home, or to a local stockfeed supply firm and

Animal Rescue group for feeding to their animals. In return we receive Chaff and

Manure.

15. Metal Coat Hangers – we arranged with a local dry cleaning company to return to them

metal coat hangers which were still usable. These were collected from within our

Community in one of the Wheelie Bin collection points. We have so far returned 3 x 100

lots of these items for re-use.

16. Camel Manure – this is an unusual activity, but was introduced by a member who has a

relative working at a Camel Tourist activity in the Hills area. The company has difficulty

in disposing of the manure, and we have obtained a couple of loads of this for our

Community Garden.



17. Books and Magazines – we have received collections of books and magazines from

deceased estates and other donations. We have established a lending library for our

members, and any surplus books or magazines are either placed on a stand for our

members to take for free, or boxed and forwarded to Save the Children Fund.

18. Fruit and vegetable bins – a large number of these were donated to our Men’s Shed by a

trader at the Gosnells Railway Markets. Our skilled members transformed these in to

workbenches for use in our new workshop. This saved quite a considerable sum of

money by re-using these sturdy bins, and giving them a new purpose.

19. Round Table – a member of the public called in to see if we would be interested in

taking off his hands an old round wooden table. If we were not interested in it, then he

was planning on taking it to the tip. One of our members saw this as an interesting

project, and set about restoring this. Although it was not quite an antique, it was an

unusual style and when refurbished it came up very well. We received an offer of

$1,000 for the table, which we gladly accepted. Other furniture collected by members

from verge pick ups has also been restored and re-used.

20. Wooden Cable Drums – we receive periodically from a local company wooden cable

drums. We have found a company that will re-use these, and we have so far recycled 30

of these for which we receive a payment.

21. Bicycles that have been donated or recovered from roadside collections have been

sorted and despatched to a group called “Bicycles for Humanity” who refurbish these

and they are then sent overseas to developing countries. We have also received a

quantity of bicycles from the Gosnells Police which were unclaimed property, and these

have also been donated to this charity.

22. Cigarette Butt recycling. This project is operated by Terracycle, and we have participated

in the collection and despatch of these to their collection point in the Eastern States.



Items made from recycled/recovered materials

Some of the items that our members have made from recycled/recovered materials

include the following:

1. Workbenches made from discarded Fruit and vegetable bins.

2. Model biplane made for one of our members relatives for an animal welfare

fundraising event.

3. Various items made by our woodworkers, including turned bowls, pens, eggcups,

plaques etc.

4. Shelving made from donated Steel Frames from Sugar Bales.

5. Raised Garden Beds for the Community Garden

Benefits to our members from their involvement in this project

1. Learning more about what can be recycled through being involved in the project.

2. Members who had previously not involved themselves in any particular activity,

suddenly started helping out.

3. Health benefits to members, through their participation in a worthwhile project. In

particular, it gave them an interest to pursue.

4. Encouraging better nutrition through interest in fresh grown produce.

Problems/Challenges that we encountered with this project

1. Initial scepticism from some members. This was overcome once they saw what we

were doing.

2. It took a while for the project to start, due to the need to educate our community

and to gather team leaders for the different activities.

3. Lack of appropriate storage facilities initially, which are now being addressed.

Gosnells Community Men’s Shed would like to thank the Waste Authority for its’ financial support of this Project.



The following pages show photo’s of some of the activities undertaken by our Community members as a part of this Waste Management project.

Our Shedlight newsletter to members showing the progress being made by our recycling and gardening team.



One of the signs provided to set up collection points for Cigarette Butt recycling.



Sheet Music stand made by a member from a recycled chair

Recovered timber stored ready for turning to make Balusters for our Veranda.



Model Bi-Plane for Animal Fundraising Display. A Pug dog was the passenger in this flying machine.

One of several work benches constructed by members using donated Fruit and Vegetable display

tables as the base. New tops added, again using donated materials.



Some of the wire received for stripping/recycling .

Shelving units made from donated steel framework ex Sugar Bales.

Project: Stopping Gosnells Men from Being Wasters€¦ · Gosnells Community Men’s Shed Inc...

Documents

Transcript of Project: Stopping Gosnells Men from Being Wasters€¦ · Gosnells Community Men’s Shed Inc...