RRA Deputy General Manager Ally Glendenning
Stumped about what to do with your Christmas tree? Dunmore Reviva has the solution
Regional Illawarra | January 19 2023
Now Christmas is over, spare a thought for the humble trees that were the centre of attention in December.
Just a couple of weeks later thousands of them have made their way to landfill, along with the decorations that adorned them through the festive season.
Deputy general manager of Resource Recovery Australia, Ally Glendenning, says there are a couple of reasons behind the annual influx of Christmas trees to the region’s tips.
Reviva Dunmore manager Jarrod Roskell - Photo: Keeli Royle.
Reuse and repair with Reviva: the Shellharbour shop selling second chances
Regional Illawarra | December 20 2023
It’s the one-stop in Shellharbour for everything from surfboards and sporting equipment to electricals, furniture and knick-knacks.
The Reviva Reuse Shop is renowned for rehoming and recycling preloved goods destined for landfill, but the products aren’t the only ones getting a second chance – employees, the community and the planet are all benefitting from the service as well.
Revive your wallet with a quick shop at Leeton's Reviva store
The Irrigator | December 14 2023
A TREASURE trove of pre-loved items have officially hit the shelves in Leeton. Earlier this month, Reviva Leeton officially opened its doors onsite at the Leeton Landfill and Recycling Centre.
Fair food coordinator Lindsay Burlton and Green Connect Manager Robert Servine
Green Connect farm produces fresh food, jobs and a sense of community
regionillawarra.com.au | 6 November 2023
Jen White
Located in a gully and surrounded by suburban family homes, a primary and a high school, Green Connect has transformed a 4.5 ha parcel of wasteland into one of the largest urban permaculture farms in the world.
Wherever you look on the Warrawong farm there are garden patches boasting plentiful produce grown organically and tended to by young people and refugees grateful to learn new skills in a safe and supportive environment.
Su Meh
New flower garden for Green Connect
ABC ILLAWARRA | 12 October 2023
The Green Connect farm is an 4.45 hectare urban farm in Warrawong that trains and employs young people and refugees, and now they are offering fresh flower bouquets! 💐
Their new flower garden was funded by musician Jack Johnson through his charity foundation and community donations.
Green Connect partnerships a win-win for the region
ILLAWARRA MERCURY | 12 August 2023
In 2021, the Illawarra had a 4.6 per cent unemployment rate, and while that rate appears to be falling post-COVID, with Wollongong City’s unemployment rate sitting at just 2.8 per cent in March, plenty of people in our community are still searching for permanent work. Yet somehow, on the flip side, many local businesses continue to feel the pinch of the labour shortage.
How a little farm in the suburbs is bringing the world to The Gong
llawarra Mercury | Saturday 24th March 2023
The Australian tradition of celebrating multiculturalism during Harmony Week got me thinking.
I'm originally from the US, and as the General Manager at Green Connect, I'm always fascinated by the official statistics which show just how much Australia has been shaped by successive waves of immigration over the past 200 years.
Green Connect features in an international guide on inspiring environmental projects
Natureproject | February 12 2023
GC featured in an international project on examples of environmental best practice around the world - Good Practice Guide by Jönköping University.
This Good Practice Guide outlines inspiring examples of social inclusion, creating urban value and environmental welfare through dialogue, education, collaboration. It also reveals new jobs and new skills that are invented on the way.
Green Connect features on PAGES 38-39 of the guide.
Large scale chemical agriculture untenable
Illawarra Mercury | Saturday 14th January 2023
There are many benefits to being the General Manager of Green Connect, but the big one is that I get to work from our farm in Warrawong regularly and when I'm there I am surrounded by a vibrant natural environment.
Decades of research have proven that exposure to natural spaces is critical to our mental and physical health. It saddens me that not everyone experiences the rhythms of the land the way that my team and I do.
Green Connect’s Flower Garden
Eastside Radio - Monday Drive | December 2022
Ruth Hessey talks to Green Connect farm manager Emily and farm worker, Su Meh about a project to grow more sustainable flowers to sell to the community.
Minister for the Environment and Water MP. Tanya Plibersek visits Soft Landing Hume
Tanya Plibersek Facebook | Thursday 10th November 2022
I’ve added mattresses, tyres, and healthcare plastics to the Minister’s Priority List. It puts industry on notice to ensure these products can be manufactured, used, reused, and disposed of sustainably.
Leading the way, one mattress at a time.
WIN Canberra | Tuesday 8th November 2022
The Federal Government is cracking down on discarded mattresses, tyres and medical supplies. They'll be putting the onus back on the companies behind the products in hopes of reducing their impact on the environment.
Leading the way, one mattress at a time, soft landing, keeping beds out of landfill while creating meaningful jobs for those struggling to find work.
The kind of focus and impact that we can get by this kind of involvement in recycling and the work that we're doing and social enterprises more broadly is going to have such an impact on our community.
Community Resources CEO interview on Eastside FM for National Recycling Week
Eastside FM Radio | Monday 7th November 2022
Marc Higgins collected bottles and cans as a kid. Now as CEO of Community Resources he’s doing it on an industrial scale! From recycling mattresses, e-waste and polystyrene to growing and distributing fair food, Marc’s 684 deadly staff are at the vanguard of Australia’s circular economy, he explains in this entertaining podcast.
Soft Landing’s ACT Manager Kylie Roberts-Frost interview on ABC Canberra
ABC Radio Canberra Saturday Breakfast | Saturday 5th November 2022
As we kick off National Recycling Week 2022 we encourage you to learn more about what goes into mattress recycling, where the components go, and what exactly the circular economy is?
Listen to our Soft Landing’s ACT Manager Kylie Roberts-Frost interview with Emma Bickley on Saturday Breakfast ABC Canberra to learn more.
Soft Landing brings new life to unwanted mattresses
www.climatechoices.act.gov.au - October 2022
In Australia, around 1.8 million mattresses end up in landfill each year. Soft Landing, a national social enterprise that operates in Hume, repurpose unwanted mattresses and ensemble bases.
Cleanaway bolsters environmental and social impact with Soft Landing
www.cleanaway.com.au - 15 June 2022
Our procurement agreement with this social enterprise makes mattress recycling accessible to even more Australians while creating jobs for those in need
Liam Simon Return and Earn Tuncurry
This year's World Environment Day theme is #OnlyOneEarth
Great Lakes Advocate - 1 June 2022
Ahead of World Environment Day this Sunday, June 5, local not-for-profit social enterprise, Resource Recovery Australia (RRA) is encouraging the Mid-Coast community to spark change. This year's World Environment Day theme is #OnlyOneEarth, a reminder to us all that we need to be a part of the change.
Could a zero waste farm be the answer to supermarket shortages?
A Current Affair – 19 March 2022
The answer to supermarket COVID-19 shortages could be wedged between suburban homes in a former industrial heartland on the New South Wales South Coast.
Tinkerage reuse, recycle workshop
The Tinkerage: Resource Recovery Australia
WIN News – 8 February 2022
Usually when you break something you throw it out, but the Tinkerage at Dunmore's telling everyone to instead think twice. It's teaching people to fix and upcycle broken objects, reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.
Green Connect to open new op shop and education hub at UOW
Illawarra Mercury – 7 February 2022
Green Connect general manager Kylie Flament is ecstatic the social enterprise is teaming with UOW to open an op shop with a difference.
Green Connect: The farm helping refugees build a life in Australia
BBC News – 3 January 2022
Green Connect is an Australian urban farm that employs former refugees who are struggling to find work.
Emmanuel Bakenga tells the BBC how it “changed his life dramatically” after he arrived from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Claire Brown from Flame Tree Beekeeping
Illawarra's Flame Tree Beekeeper explains what to do when you see a swarm
Illawarra Mercury - 3 January 2022
If you spot a swam of bees, Claire Brown could be the one to help you remove the buzzy insects safely without using a can of Mortein. The apian expert has been keeping bees for around seven years and is increasingly being requested to share her knowledge - and dislodge a swarm or two from domestic premises.
Larry Fulton buys, wraps and donates hundreds of children's presents every year.
Larry has this year donated more than 200 Christmas presents to needy children
Great Lakes Advocate - 13 December 2021
The thought of wrapping 230 Christmas presents is enough to make most people shake in their Santa boots. But it's no big deal to Forster local, Larry Fulton, who buys, wraps and donates hundreds of children's presents every year.
Kylie Flament - Green Connect General Manager
Kylie Flament shows why no problems too big for a community working together
Illawarra Mercury - 25 November 2021
When Green Connect started almost 11 years ago, "we wanted to help solve unemployment, particularly for young people and refugees, we wanted to help deal with the unprecedented levels of waste going to landfill and we wanted to address the unsustainable food system we have here”.
Joe Rasmussen - Soft Landing NSW Manager
How mattresses are getting lives back on track
The Project - Change Makers - November 16, 2021
Every year in Australia, we throw out more than a million mattresses. But one social enterprise is doing its bit to help recycle them and give jobs to some of our most disadvantaged people.
Soft Landing employees Akhil Ahmad. Picture: Tomasz Machnik
Did you get a new mattress during COVID? Did you send it to landfill or have it recycled?
Canberra Times - November 11, 2021
The year 2020-2021 may not have been a good one for many people but it's been a record one for social enterprise Soft Landing which collects and recycles mattresses nationally, including at Hume in the ACT.
RRA Mid Coast, Emillie Wilde.
Mid Coast residents help social enterprise RRA divert 3295 tonnes of waste from landfill
Manning River Times - 10 November 2021
Mid North Coast residents have demonstrated their great appetite for recycling, helping social enterprise, Resource Recovery Australia (RRA) to divert a massive 3295 tonnes of waste from landfill during 2020-21…
Soft Landing employees Kolimullah Kolimullah and Akhil Ahmad. Picture: Tomasz Machnik, Flashpoint Labs
Social enterprise registers a record haul of mattresses
Fairfield City Champion - 10 November 2021
For every 35 mattresses, national social enterprise Soft Landing collect and recycle each day, they can create a job for someone who "really needs one".
Soft Landing's largest site is at Smithfield and services 14 councils and employs mostly former refugees. Of the 260 people employed in 2020-21, 79 per cent had faced some sort of challenge in entering the workforce.
Recycling mattresses and rebuilding lives
ABC Radio Drive with Anna Vidot - Monday 8 November, 2021, 3:30pm
Did you buy a new bed in the past year? What did you do with the old mattress? Did you look for a way to recycle it? Did you know that was even possible?
That's where Soft Landing comes in. It's a social enterprise that recycles mattresses.
In the past year, they recycled a record 538,000 mattresses and ensembles across the country.
Kylie Roberts-Frost is the ACT Manager of Soft Landing spoke to Drive presenter Anna Vidot.
Soft Landing Smithfield. Photo by Nick Moir
The challenge of finding a final resting place for old mattresses
Sydney Morning Herald - November 7, 2021
Joe Rasmussen has never had the urge to throw himself from the top of the stairs of his Smithfield warehouse onto the piles of mattresses that cover the floor…
Kylie Flament with farmer Shane Clarke at the Green Connect farm in Warrawong. Picture: Adam McLean
Warrawong's Green Connect farm workshops are restarting
Illawarra Mercury - 25 October 2021
Green Connect's 11-acre permaculture farm at Warrawong is reopening to the public with a summer workshop series.
Experts will be teaching skills in beekeeping to propagation, seed saving to gardening in a small space, from December through to January.
Su Meh, Emily Henderson, Pleh Meh and Kylie Flament, general manager of Green Connect. CREDIT: JAMES BRICKWOOD
Turning 11 acres of a NSW ‘dumping site’ into a world-class farm
Sydney Morning Herald - October 24, 2021
The land had little going for it when Wollongong not-for-profit group Green Connect selected it as the site of their new urban farm.
Green Connect wins global Commonwealth Innovation Award
Illawarra Mercury - 30 September 2021
Port Kembla social enterprise Green Connect has been recognised by the Commonwealth of nations for its innovation - the only group from Australia picked for the global awards.
Warrawong’s Green Connect farm set to farewell popular manager
Illawarra Mercury - 21 August 2021
Cal Champagne will end his eight-year stint with Green Connect in the coming weeks. Losing the farm manager is a big blow for the social enterprise. Mr Champagne’s effort and energy over the years has helped turn what was once 11 acres of Warrawong wasteland into a thriving permaculture farm.
The Tinkerage is usually a lively and busy space and has a great sense of community
The Tinkerage at Shellharbour goes online this Friday
Illawarra Mercury - 5 August 2021
A much-loved Shellharbour tinkering workshop is going online to keep the community connected during lockdown.
Social enterprise Resource Recovery Australia (RRA) has teamed up with Shellharbour City Council to run the online workshop on Friday for locals who share a love of repairing and reusing salvaged objects and are looking for connection.
Eh Moo, Shay, Pleh Meh and Sue Meh packing Green Connect fruit and vegetable boxes.
Green Connect giving groceries, care packages to Illawarra families in need
Illawarra Mercury - 20 July 2021
Illawarra-based social enterprise Green Connect are delivering free fresh produce and care packages to people doing it tough in the midst of the pandemic. The community are being asked to consider donating to the cause, or nominating someone who could use a bit of help
Support our local fruit and veggie producers
WIN News Illawarra - 06 July 2021
Illawarra social enterprise Green Connect is encouraging us to support our local fruit and veggie producers.
The community organisation employs refugees and disadvantaged youth, and is one of only three market gardens in the region.
RRA Mid Coast Reviva area manager, Russell Ping.
Social enterprise celebrates NAIDOC Week
Great Lakes Advocate - 05 July 2021
National social enterprise Resource Recovery Australia (RRA) is acknowledging the contribution Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees play in the organisation's identity during NAIDOC Week.
Celebrating NAIDOC Week this week, RRA Mid Coast Reviva area manager, Russell Ping says Indigenous employees are a big part of RRA's identity, especially in the local area.
James Holder, 21, says working at Reviva Ibis has ended his three-year job search. (ABC Capricornia: Lucy Loram)
Waste recycling social enterprise steps up to employ locals, diverts 82 tonnes of waste
ABC News - 05 July 2021
After three tedious years of handing out resumes, James Holder has found a job he adores.
"Everyday is a blessing just having work and having something to do with life and actually getting somewhere, it's a lovely thing, it's awesome."
'Stateless' refugee's 17-year ordeal to find a 'safe' home in Wollongong
Illawarra Mercury - 26 June 2021
Eh Moo readily admits working at the Green Connect urban farm in Warrawong has changed his life for the better.
"Before I started at Green Connect I was very shy and scared to talk to people because my English was not very good, but now I have so much selfconfidence and I believe in myself," he said.
Noor 'grateful 'to land job
Fairfield City Champion - 22 June 2021
Noor Kamal knows just how important his job is at mattress recycling social enterprise Soft Landing's warehouse in Smithfield.
"If I didn't have this job I wouldn't be able to support my family back home, and all of the friends I have made in Australia have been through my work," said Mr Kamal
Illawarra op shops, charity bins not the only solution to getting rid of clothes
Illawarra Mercury – 22 May 2021
Think putting unwanted pants in a charity bin is a good deed? Few realise about 90 per cent of donations will never end up in an op shop. So where do you take your old clothes?
Workshops for Urban Growers
The Bugle - 6 March 2021
Those who shop at the Kiama Farmer’s Market will have seen Su Meh and others selling vegetables at the Green Connect stall, without knowing the story behind the produce.
Social enterprise helps refugees remove barriers to employment
Fairfield City Champion - 12 November 2020
The Smithfield arm of a mattress recycling social enterprise is kicking major goals in diverting waste from landfill.
Social enterprise diverts 2583 tonnes of waste on Mid Coast
Manning River Times - 10 November 2020
Social enterprise Resource Recovery Australia (RRA) diverted 2583 tonnes of waste from landfill for reuse and recycling across its MidCoast operations in 2019-20.
Soft Landing Newcastle manager Josh Glanville and staff member Ryan Cross. Picture: Supplied
Soft Landing Newcastle recycling mattresses to divert steel, timber and foam from landfill
Newcastle Herald - 9 November 2020
The Newcastle arm of a mattress recycling social enterprise is kicking major goals in diverting waste from landfill.
Reviva Moss Vale depot hand Libby Lee is proud to be a part of an program that aims to re-use and re-purpose things that could have otherwise ended up in landfill. Photo supplied
Moss Vale Reviva team leading the way in recycling
Southern Highlands News - 9 November 2020
Social enterprise Resource Recovery Australia (RRA) has diverted 388 tonnes of waste from landfill for re-use in Moss Vale in 2019-20..
Call for scale-up of Illawarra youth jobs program with proven outcomes
Illawarra Mercury - 31 July 2020
A not-for-profit group is seeking government support for the continuation and scale-up of a youth employment program in the Illawarra.
Wollongong’s urban farmland tours back on in time for the school holidays
Illawarra Mercury - 8 July 2020
In the industrial hills behind Warrawong High School, the Green Connect farm is a little slice of bucolic paradise.
Has COVID-19 accelerated funding collaboration?
Pro Bono Australia - 9 June 2020
There is a lot at stake for jobs-focused social enterprises in this crisis. The jobs they create offer more than an income.
Reviva Moss Vale team giving new purpose to hidden treasures
Southern Highlands News - 28 May 2020
Recovery has an extra special meaning at one Southern Highlands business set to re-open after a COVID-19 forced shut down.
Moss Vale Reviva centre to re-open
The Reviva Centre at Moss Vale re - opens to the public from Monday.
Environmental benefits provide 'silver lining' - and social connection - during COVID-19 crisis
Illawarra Mercury - 28 March 2020
As panic buying continues to create a shortage of supplies in major supermarkets and society becomes increasingly locked-down, a growing number of Illawarra residents have been looking for ways to become more self-sufficient.
Soft Landing Media Q&A with Eco Voice
Interview with Chris Richards, General Manager, Soft Landing
RRA diverted 291.76 tonnes of material from landfill for reuse in 12 months
Great Lakes Advocate - 23 October 2019
A quiet revolution has been taking place during the past 28 years, and it's been right here in our own backyard.
Soft Landing makes a big impact
Westpac Sustainability News - 11 March 2019
“Helping people – that’s what I love about this place,” says Julie Shannon, Logistics Manager at Soft Landing, one of Australia’s largest mattress recyclers.
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Australia and recognise the continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future. We walk together towards healing.
