Business On Make With Clean Sweep

The Age

Thursday July 6, 2006

PHILIP HOPKINS

JOHN Redmond easily sums up the recycling philosophy at his metal manufacturing and engineering business: "The best thing about rethinking our waste practices isn't the additional income and savings generated," he says.

"It is knowing that we are leaving the natural environment better than we found it. What better inheritance can I leave for my grandchildren?"

That approach explains why his business, Redmond Repetition Engineers in Hoppers Crossing, in Melbourne's west, was chosen to launch an innovative program that aims to help business cut the costs associated with energy, water and waste use.

The program is the brainchild of the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry and EPA Victoria, which put aside their sometimes testy relationship for the common good.

The program was launched yesterday by the acting Premier and Minister for the Environment, John Thwaites, who said its name - Grow Me The Money - clearly captured the thinking that environmental sustainability was a big business opportunity, not a cost.

Mr Thwaites said the program was mainly aimed at small business, which often did not have the resources, compared with big business, to deal with recycling and waste issues.

Grow Me The Money is a one-stop shop program that will enable business to simplify its access to hundreds of programs and tools available from government agencies and corporations in Australia and overseas.

VECCI and the EPA, with local government, water bodies, public utilities and big corporations, have collaborated to produce the offering.

The program has a comprehensive website, a telephone hotline, and a program of rewards and recognition.

The State Government has provided $3 million for the project over three years.

Redmond Repetition Engineers, which produces metal components for the car and white goods industries, has earned an extra $312,000 a year from improving its waste and recycling practices.

A lot of oil-coated metal is used in the production process, but through a $120,000 recycling plant, the metal is cleaned.

The scrap metal is sold and the oil, at a time of rising oil prices, is re-used in the plant. The recycling machine paid for itself in five months.

"A factory doesn't have to be a black hole of Calcutta," Mr Redmond said. "It can be clean."

EPA chairman Mick Bourke said in developing the program, the EPA's approach was not to regulate. "Business does not want to be preached at," he said. "They want help when help is needed."

VECCI chief executive Neil Coulson said the program would focus heavily on general manufacturing, food processing and Melbourne central business district office buildings.

"Manufacturing alone is responsible for output of over $29 billion per annum," he said. "If we can add just 2 per cent of efficiency to those totals, then the state economy's bottom line can increase by more than half a billion dollars a year."

The program will start with three pilot sites: Shepparton, the Melbourne CBD and western metropolitan regions. It will be gradually implemented across Victoria.

KEY POINTS

? Recycling is seen as a big opportunity.

? The State Government has put up $3 million.

? Three pilot sites will start the program.

LINK

? www.growmethemoney.com.au

© 2006 The Age

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