Lotus Glen Correctional Centre wins national waste award (with audio grabs)
Lotus Glen Correctional Centre’s industry leading Environmental Management Recycling Program has been nationally recognised at the 2024 Waste Innovation & Recycling Awards.
Named Most Outstanding Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery (WARR) project: Regional/rural, the centre’s recycling program has diverted between 700 and 1000 tonnes of waste from landfill since its creation in 2022.
Utilising prisoner labour to divert about 50 per cent of the centre’s waste from landfill, the program is Queensland’s largest recycling program in a correctional centre.
Before a prisoner workforce industry was established to collect, sort and divert all possible waste streams, it was identified that up to 54 tonnes of waste per month was being sent to landfill.
Correctional Manager Larry Guilfoyle (right) accepts the award. PICTURE: SUPPLIED
The program also contributes to the rehabilitation of prisoners through education, developing skills in waste management and increasing employability opportunities upon release.
Acting Correctional Manager Larry Guilfoyle said there were multiple challenges involved in operating a successful diversion industry inside a secure facility.
“Correctional facilities by nature are enormous consumers, so initial steps were small ones, but as efficiency and learning increased the process became more successful,” he said.
“By demonstrating an ongoing and successful capacity to deliver these outcomes we are establishing an industry standard and blueprint for other correctional facilities.
“Beyond the environmental benefits, the program trains and prepares prisoners, many of them First Nations, for improved reintegration into community and possible employment in the recycling industry on release.”
Correctional Manager Larry Guilfoyle speaks after accepting the award. PICTURE: SUPPLIED
The Waste Innovation and Recycling Awards, held during Waste Expo Australia, acknowledges and celebrates outstanding achievements within the waste and resource recovery sector.
In 2023, the program also won a National Corrections Day award for promoting a culture of accountability by promoting the ethical treatment of all waste materials.
Audio grabs with Correctional Manager Larry Guilfoyle:
The purpose of the program:
The importance of the program for prisoner rehabilitation:
ENDS