BottleCycler Glass Crushing System at the Melbourne Cup Carnival
Announcement posted by BottleCycler 22 Feb 2023
BottleCycler, Australia’s innovative glass bottle crushing machine, is proud to partner with the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) and Cirka for the 2022 Melbourne Cup Carnival. With four race days over a festivities-filled week - Derby Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Oaks Day and Stakes Day - close to 250,000 people returned to Flemington.
As an infinitely recyclable material, BottleCycler believes in making its removal and disposal easy and efficient for hospitality venues. Small, quiet and sleek, the machine crushes up to 80 glass bottles per minute. The solution takes the pain out of glass management and recycling, with proven results in being better for your business, better for your people, and better for the planet.
BottleCycler’s impact
Over 50,000 kilograms of crushed glass was diverted from landfill during the Carnival. BottleCycler’s full-service offering includes an online tracking portal, here reporting the equivalent savings of 31.248 tons of CO2, 345.24 gigajoules of electricity and 122,976 litres of water, and 7.50 cars removed from the road.
‘Prior to BottleCycler, we had a very manual way of processing glass - a range of different colours meant you couldn’t recycle in one bucket’, said Craig Moca, Cirka’s National Manager (Venues & Events) ‘When we found out about BottleCycler, we asked “how can we make things better?” If you’re looking for a single solution to glass waste disposal while saving space, BottleCycler is the way to go.’
BottleCycler’s unique solution ensured that the Carnival’s glassware consumption was handled sustainably, efficiently and safely. Flemington Racecourse uses BottleCycler’s Australian-made bottle crushing machines year-round with 12 permanent machines on site, and an additional 18 standard machines and six chute machines were installed for the duration.
‘When you’re doing a lot of bottle products, particularly champagne bottles and wine bottles, there’s not a lot of space back-of-house, particularly for waste,’ said James Reid, Operations Executive General Manager of Victoria Racing Club. ‘BottleCycler’s solution ticked multiple boxes by allowing waste to be transported offsite more efficiently while also reducing the amount of usable space required to achieve a 100% glass recycling outcome.’
Across four days of heart-pounding racing, BottleCycler collected all glass onsite, diverting 100% of the collected used glass from landfill - a significant milestone.
Ongoing partnerships for a more sustainable industry
George Azzam, General Manager of BottleCycler, was thrilled to see the role BottleCycler played in delivering such a sustainable outcome at this large-scale event. ‘We appreciate the vision of both the Victoria Racing Club and Cirka to use BottleCycler as a single-source glass waste management solution for not only the Melbourne Cup Carnival, but all year-round,’ shared George. ‘We look forward to continuing this strong relationship well into the future, continuing to gain great results for their business, their people and, ultimately, for the planet.’