If you've just carved up the skate ramps at Minkara Park in South Australia, you might be glad of a cool place to rest. This recycled-plastic seat is not only attractive, comfortable and long lasting, but also provides the perfect shady spot to cool your wheels.

Keep Australia Beautiful and Replas share a common goal to inspire and help the Australian community care for the environment. During Agfest 2013 they also shared a display area and will continue this arrangement next year as the two organisations have so much in common.

Each year in Tasmania, the Kingborough Council hosts a poster competition for schools based on an environmental theme. Bruny Island School, who were winners in 2011 and 2012, have a commitment to sustainable practices with their garden, farm, environment and infrastructure. The students agreed that any purchase with the competition prize money should follow this ethos, so they commissioned a special seat from Replas featuring a beautiful butterfly motif and plaques which recognise this special achievement.

In South Australia, Minister Ian Hunter (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation SA) along with Mark Jacobsen awarded the first Redcycle recycled seat to Woodville Primary School. The Redcycle program is a collaboration between Replas, RED group and Coles.

As the initiative rolls across Australia, all 42 Coles stores in South Australia will not only collect soft plastics for recycling, but will also feature recycled plastic seats in-store for use by their customers. Coles will also donate a considerable number of seats to the local school market to truly close the loop on recycling.

Owner of Mornington Peninsula’s Baker Boys, John Mentiplay, was reluctant to send their empty bread crates to landfill. A quick call to Mornington Peninsula Shire Council confirmed there was indeed a better solution. Having previously installed recycled-plastic seats along the foreshore the council were sure Replas could help. John recently delivered a truck load of old unwanted crates to our office in Carrum Downs and we can’t wait to sink our teeth into them!

Centenary Park Golf Course in Frankston, Victoria, is one of the most popular public courses in Melbourne. Not only offering excellent public access, the golf course is also forging ahead in the use of recycled products. Replas benches, seats, ball washer stands, bins, signs and sand containers are just a few of the products dotted around the course, returning this valuable resource to the community that collected it.

With overwhelming community support for the REDcycle plastic recycling program, Coles is rewarding customers with practical seats made from the plastic collected in the bins. Shoppers at Coles Cranbourne North in Victoria can now rest easy on this comfortable seat knowing that as a community they have saved a considerable amount of plastic from landfill.

40 lucky schools throughout Victoria recently received a special seat created by Replas from the plastic bags they had collected through the Coles ‘Every bag counts’ competition.

Aspendale North Kinder was one of 40 lucky schools throughout Victoria to win a seat in the Coles ‘Every bag counts competition. Students brought their waste plastic to Coles stores for recycling instead of sending it to landfill. Over 30 tonnes of bags and soft plastics was collected during the campaign. The material was reprocessed by Replas and turned into special seats which were presented to the winning schools.

The children at the kinder, along with all of the other participating schools, are making a real difference to the environment. Congratulations Aspendale North!

Details of all winners will soon be available in the News section of our website.

Plastic has become fantastic at Sunshine Hospital. Western Health has teamed with Abel Plastics – the supplier of plastic material used by the hospital – to establish a recycling stream to turn medical plastics into furniture. Recycling partners the Red Group and Replas collected and turned this material including sterile wrap and packaging into four recycled bench seats which have been installed outside the hospital. About two tonnes of waste plastic has been collected since January.

Western Health sustainability officer Catherine O’Shea said a green economy had been established. ‘We have been trying to take a more responsible approach to our environmental footprint, and the staff have been very enthusiastic,’ she said. ‘We’ve been recycling so much more than we had been.’ Western Health has a target to divert 20 per cent of its waste from landfill by July next year. Ms O’Shea said they hope to roll out the program to other hospitals.

On the last day of the New Zealand Recreation Association (NZRA) conference, Metal Art—Replas’ NZ distributor—held a prize draw in which the winner had the opportunity to donate a Kimberly Seat to the community organisation of their choice. Winner Walter Miller, Parks Operations Manager, Rotorua District Council, chose to donate the recycled-plastic seat to the Seventh Day Adventist School in Rotorua.