VR tours to help with waste education

Virtual Reality headsets and videos featuring local waste champions will be among a suite of tools the City of Cockburn will use to help our Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) community learn about the importance of reducing waste.

The City has received a $16,500 State Government Infrastructure and Community Education 2021-22 WasteSorted grant to help with the education program.

It aims to foster waste avoidance by improving waste sorting by the community.

City of Cockburn Waste Education Coordinator Clare Courtauld said diverting more items from landfill through better waste sorting would help the City achieve its WA Waste Strategy targets which must be met by all WA local governments.

The program will use multilingual waste education kits, games and videos, plus virtual reality tours of recycling and landfill facilities to demonstrate how everyone plays a vital role in preventing rubbish from ending up in landfill.

“There are many alternative uses and streams of recycling for so many products that we all use every day and it can be quite confusing unless you understand the reasons behind this,” Ms Courtauld said.

“We hope this fun educational opportunity will help people understand why it’s important for the planet and our hip pocket that we all take responsibility for the rubbish we generate.

“From plastics and packaging to paper, bottles, tins and cans that pass through our hands every day, there are lots of ways to recycle these and to reduce our reliance on some of these materials too.”

Many of the City's 117,000 residents are culturally and linguistically diverse, with 21.5 per cent speaking languages other than English at home. Nearly three per cent of these people reported difficulty speaking English and both parents of nearly 45 per cent of our residents were born overseas (Australian Census 2016).

Be a GREAT Sort waste education program highlights:

Subtitled virtual reality tours of Henderson Waste Recovery Park and the Suez Material Recovery Facility in Bibra Lake are great for people unable to attend the tours in-person Subtitled waste education videos featuring local talent will be provided on the City’s YouTube channel and other online platforms Super-sized waste education games will be developed for schools Waste education toolkits with translations Some elements of the education program will be available at City events, school incursions and community workshops, and available to loan from the City's libraries.

Find out more about the City's Environment and Waste programs on the website opens in a new window.