Entry received from: Auckland Council
Category: The Minister of Local Government’s Award for Excellence in Council-Community Relations
The Onehunga Community Recycling Centre (OCRC) is part of the Resource Recovery Network (RRN) that supports Auckland Council's (Council) goal of becoming zero-waste by 2040. From the project conception, Council acknowledged the importance of community engagement to ensure the OCRC achieved all four wellbeing outcomes.
Through working in partnership with mana whenua, local community leaders, local businesses and schools, this project has:
- Supported the first Māori and Pasifika organisation in Auckland to become a Community Recycling Centre (CRC) operator
- Established the OCRC as a welcoming, learning space, designed with the local community
- Started to influence and change behaviour: waste is seen as a resource, and a way to support economic prosperity and wellbeing
- Contributed towards the development of a circular economy and creation of jobs
- Influenced council's tendering processes to make them more diverse user-friendly
- Diverted 100 tonnes of waste in the first seven months.
Investing in engagement and supporting local organisations to run the facility has proved essential to the success of the OCRC. The learnings from the project have helped Council improve processes and create a pilot example for scalability.
Thank you to our category sponsor