We are excited to announce that we have teamed up with several local breweries to supply them with the clips collected and saved from landfills. So far we’ve saved 11,500 of them in just a few months.

How clip-saving works

We first need to collect clips from all avid beer drinkers in Perth, WA. The easiest way to put a bring-back scheme in place (which I have grown up in Europe) is to ask people to bring things back to where they bought them. In the case of plastic can holders – the bottle shop.

Bottle shops clip collections

We approach bottle shops and offer them a free specially designed and branded bin to display at their store. These bins have a small slot in their lids so people can slide clips through when they come to buy their drinks. When the bin is full, any bottle shop employee can message or call the number on the bin to let us know. We will then come to swap the bin free of charge so they can keep collecting.

The list of our current beer clip collection points can be found on our webpage here. Btw. if you’d like to become a collection point, please fill in this form.

We also provide our network of bottle shops with supportive signage and other marketing materials and social media tiles. And each time we come to pick them up, we promote their amazing work on Instagram.

What does Donut Waste do to clips?

Now for us, the hard work begins. We count them (for statistics purposes), take off all the stickers and wash them. About 80% of collected clips are black. The rest is the colour of the rainbow and we will soon be looking to offer these to breweries too. Less than 1% of all clips are broken or damaged. We take these to a local plastic recycler in Welshpool called Claw Environmental.

Clean clips are then packed back into their original boxes of 788 and we sell them for a discounted price to breweries that are keen to become more sustainable and support our small social enterprise.

How breweries reuse clips

For breweries, buying a local product that is cheaper and looks exactly the same is a no brainer. Some of them with attached venues or bottle shops have become collection points themselves. That way they can educate their customers to bring clips back. They can then keep all they like to reuse and drop all others that are different sizes or colours, broken or simply too dirty or loaded with stickers.

We love to promote our partners and their amazing sustainable efforts. So far we’ve teamed up with Mash Brewing Co, Spinifex Brewing and Campus Brewing.

Btw. we also ask breweries to collect original cardboard boxes from beer clips so we can reuse them.

Why collect clips not just recycle them?

It’s important for all WA residents to learn that plastic can holders can not be recycled through their usual kerbside (yellow) bins. By putting clips into your recycling bin you cause contamination which can harm the machinery in the material recovery facility and your clips will end up in landfill.

These clips are made from recycled plastic in the USA by a company called PakTech and can be reused 50+ times. By reusing them locally we save the energy and carbon emissions released by making these in the first place, plus carbon emissions for transport.

We are very happy that WA breweries are getting on board with our initiative and urge all residents to join the course. The demand has already acceded the supply as we have many more awesome breweries ready to jump on board.

So if you’re reading this, please help us spread the word! Thank you.