Support Schemes

Reaching Small to Medium Business in Bellevue

From Issue 3 of Zeroing In - December 2006

Small and Medium Enterprises are Australia’s biggest employers, and a driving economic force, yet have proved very difficult to reach with waste reduction and recycling messages.

That is something the Swan Catchment Council hopes to change, through a project that is connecting small businesses in the Bellevue Industrial Area with major waste reduction, reuse and recycling operations. If successful, this model can be adopted by other industrial precincts.

The Council last year received a SWIS grant of $120,000 over two years for a program to assess the waste production of businesses in the area, and develop strategies cutting the amount of that waste heading to landfill. The Swan River Trust has also provided financial support.

The Council’s Sustainable Production Regional Delivery Manager, Tony Soteriou, said there had been a tendency to focus on large industry and major business when looking at the waste issue – at the expense of small operations.

‘Their number is enormous and they are very diverse and hard to reach,’ Mr Soteriou said of the SME sector.

‘Everyone throws their hands up and puts it in the too-hard basket. We are talking about small businesses, even micro businesses, where you have dad running the business and mum doing the books.

‘But although they are individually small, there are lots of them with a high production of waste and the cumulative effect is that they have a high impact.

‘This project is about seeing the issue and trying to do something about it.’

The project has three phases, the first of which is due to be completed in June 2006. Working the Small and Medium Enterprise Centre from Edith Cowan University, the Council surveyed all businesses in the area to establish the amount of waste they produced and how they disposed of it – as well as what processes they would need to have in place to change their existing habits.

‘We then move into the implementation phase, using the results from the survey to find strategies for improving the disposal of waste,’ Mr Soteriou said.

‘We are going to work with industries to improve the waste stream. Then we will resurvey to ascertain the improvements – or lack of improvements perhaps.’

Already, steps had been taken to help the small businesses link up with major waste operations, to show the types of options that might be available.

‘The whole idea of this is, as far as practical, to link these small businesses with the major waste players around,’ Mr Soteriou said.

He said that while the survey showed there was general awareness of the waste problem – and small businesses were very receptive to the idea of waste reduction – converting awareness into action was difficult.

‘Most people are aware of the environmental issues but the big step is between knowing what they should be doing and getting the right help to actually do it,’ he said.

‘Our goal is to get them over the divide. This is a point source issue. You can plant all the rushes you like and try to save as much as you can but if you don’t stop the source of the pollution it is pointless. We want to make a difference.’

The project has been supported by the City of Swan, the Swan Chamber of Commerce and the Bellevue Residents & Ratepayers Association.

The Swan Catchment Council is funded through the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust, a key Natural Resource Management initiative.