Endeavour Group has expanded its beer can clip reuse and recycling scheme to South Australia and Western Australia via local partnerships, including with Prancing Pony Brewery.
Following a similar path as the likes of Bright Brewery took at the beginning of 2021, Endeavour, along with the Independent Brewers Association, Visy Recycling and clip maker PakTech, launched the campaign late last year in selected BWS and Dan Murphy’s on the eastern seaboard. It involves collecting the plastic four and six pack can handles, that have become ubiquitous in the industry, via dedicated in-store collection points to be reused multiple times prior to being recycled to make new clips.
Endeavour’s sustainability manager Sam Lungerhausen said it made sense to expand the scheme as with no multi-state recycling option in place previously for the handles many were ending up in landfill.
“Many beer lovers are familiar with the can clips that hold four and six packs together, but most probably don’t realise that the clips are made of such sturdy material that they can be reused multiple times before being recycled and made into new clips.”
Having received can clips from customers at their Totness brewery since 2019 Prancing Pony in SA will now take that a step further and begin collecting them from selected BWS and Dan Murphy’s in the state.
“This is an excellent initiative from the Endeavour Group,” Prancing Pony CEO and founder Corinna Steeb said (pictured above on the left with SA’s Minister for Environment and Water David Speirs and Endeavour’s Sam Lungershausen).
“It reduces waste and at the same time, it is convenient for shoppers as they can return these clips on their way to buy their favourite beverages.
“We are passionate about reducing our environmental footprint at Prancing Pony, which is why we are excited about partnering with Endeavour Group. We have a 60kw solar system to reduce our grid electricity usage, all the grain left over after brewing goes to local pig farmers and we use recyclable and reusable materials as much as we can.”
In WA Endeavour Group has partnered with the founder of sustainability start-up Donut Waste Sharka Hornakova.
“I read about Endeavour Group’s initiative and was super excited that this is finally happening, especially because collection of can clips is mostly about reuse which is much higher on the waste hierarchy than recycling. Then I found out that West Australian BWS and Dan Murphy’s stores didn’t have the collection units yet. So I thought to myself ‘why can’t I do it? I’m already driving around picking up coffee grounds, might as well pick those up’,” she said.
The way it works is customers place used can clips in the can clip collection units in-store which are then picked up by Sharka.
“We will collect, wash and pack them and sell them back to breweries for a discounted price. Our aim is to make enough money to cover our expenses so we can make the whole process economically viable. Finding solutions that financially stack up is very important on a local as well as global scale to move us towards the circular economy.”
Once the can clips have been reused to the end of their lifespan, they are sent to Visy where they are converted into HDPE resin (high-density polyethylene), which is then returned to PakTech so they can create more clips.
SA and WA customers can find the recycling units in the following BWS and Dan Murphy’s stores:
- Dan Murphy’s Norwood SA
- Dan Murphy’s Mount Barker SA
- BWS Adelaide SA
- BWS Stirling SA
- Dan Murphy’s Hyde Park WA
- Dan Murphy’s Innaloo WA
- Dan Murphy’s Bicton WA
- BWS Mt Hawthorn WA
- BWS Bullcreek WA
- BWS Perth WA
Almost 30 stores across the country now have the collection units and Endeavour said it was aiming to roll out the scheme in more stores this year.