How this social enterprise created new jobs by recycling containers
Incredable Tip Shop runs commercially viable businesses with a social purpose. Among other businesses, Incredable runs Cash for Cans at the Mackay Waste Transfer Station in Paget, QLD.
When the community recycle their eligible containers in this depot, they are helping Incredable support their cause.
The purpose of the charity is to provide secure employment
Incredable Tip Shop was born with the objective of providing secure employment for disadvantaged job seekers.
An opportunity within the recycling industry
The Containers for Change Scheme was introduced to the charity as a business adjunct to their Mackay resource recovery operation in November 2018, where they have since operated this unit in a partnership with Return It.
Cash for Cans commenced operations with an initial six staff, a mix of casuals and permanents, and variable trading hours over a 5-day week. As the scheme progressed and the site throughput improved, the leading team decided to align the Cash for Cans operations with their other site activities, operating 7 days per week.
The transition to a fully operating automated recycling depot
Return It and its associates, Container Deposit Systems, greatly assisted this transition through the provision of two automated counting and classifying machines (ART), a Manual input station (MIS) and a Cash Redemption Terminal (CRT).
With almost 20 million containers returned at this facility up to date, this charity proud itself of supporting the community while caring for the environment at the same time.
Reaching the goal
Nowadays, there's a core staffing of five permanent staff and one casual with an anticipated wage budget of ~$300k. The team is conformed by two senior-aged employees, who have been unemployed for a long term before joining Cash for Cans and another four young members. Two of these young professionals are actually having their very first employment thanks to the charity.
Without the Containers for Change scheme in operation, those six jobs would not have happened.
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