Local community group Repair Cafe Bellarine has created a new initiative to reduce waste at events including festivals, markets, school fetes and parties.
‘Reuse me in OG’ allows event organisers to borrow reusable tableware kits for free.
Repair Cafe has purchased 250 sets of reusable plates, festival plates, bowls, cups and cutlery with the option for event organisers to borrow as little as 20 of each. The sets are made from recycled plastics.
The purchase of the kits was supported by the City of Greater Geelong through its Environment and Sustainability Grants Program.
The ‘Complete Kit’ includes a total of 160 plates, bowls, cups and cutlery in boxes of 20 items each, and the ‘Basic Kit’ includes 90 divided festival plates and forks and come in boxes of 30 each.
The concept was created after Repair Cafe Bellarine creator Courtney Johnson noticed that some of the local markets and festivals were still using single-use plastics, despite a community-wide focus on reducing waste.
“We found that if markets and schools wanted to stop using single-use plastics and swap to reusable tableware, they didn’t have many options available to them, especially small events with limited budgets,” she said.
“We wanted to create a service that reduced this barrier by making it easily accessible, affordable and easy to use. A huge thank you goes to the Driftwood Cafe in Ocean Grove who have offered their services for free to commercially clean the kits after use. ”
To find out more, visit linktr.ee/repaircafebellarine and download the User Guide or contact the group at repaircafebellarine@gmail.com.
