Bottles Can’t Recycle Themselves This More FM Winery Tour

4TH February 2011

The Glass Packaging Forum (the Forum) is back on the road with the MOREFM Winery Tour with plans to exceed last year’s recycling haul of 84,000 glass bottles.

The 19 shows start on Friday 4th February at Ascension Wine Estate in Matakana, near Warkworth and wrap up back in Auckland at the Villa Maria Estate in March with a nationwide tour of 16 locations along the way.

These spectacular events present Brooke Fraser, OPSHOP and Midnight Youth.

At each concert the audience will be reminded how important it is to preserve the beautiful location and environment and how recycling helps do this. The Forum will promote recycling under the Love NZ brand as part of a nationwide $3million public place recycling initiative funded by local and central government and the Forum.

John Webber, General Manager of the Glass Packaging Forum said that supporting the MORE FM Winery Tour last year has helped develop the right framework for public place recycling:

“It is an immense undertaking to collect and recycle 84,000 glass bottles from concertgoers. It’s not enough to install recycling bins, they need to be clearly marked, accessible and then people need to be encouraged and even inspired to use the right bins. That’s why using positive endorsement from the Stage is so important. Since last year we have taken on the management of the Government owned Love NZ brand and we will start to roll this out at the More FM Winery Tour concerts prior to a major campaign ahead of and during the Rugby World Cup. ”

“In addition to providing separate glass recycling bins and encouraging colour separation of glass, there will be mixed recycling bins for cans and plastic. Our message to the audience is simple - we want people to realize that bottles don’t recycle themselves – it takes people to put them in the correct bin!”

“We are disappointed that the glass industry has to drive events’ recycling yet again but in the absence of funding from other sectors we have taken on the provision of recycling bins for plastic and cans because otherwise these would have to be put in the rubbish bins.”

“Away from home New Zealanders consume around 129 million glass bottles, 76 million cans and 400 million litre plastic drinks bottles each year. That’s a lot of packaging much of which can be easily recycled if facilities are in place and people know what they can recycle and where. The More FM winery tour is going to make it easy for people to do that.”

“During 2011 we are going to assist with the installation of around 2000 permanent and temporary Love NZ bins to ensure glass recycling facilities are in place not just for New Zealanders but for over 85,000 visitors including 2,500 of the world’s media who expect to be able to recycle.”

New Zealand’s favourite songbird Brooke Fraser will headline the MORE FM Winery Tour 2011 summer series along with an all male entourage: chart-topping four-piece band OPSHOP and the popular Auckland rock band, Midnight Youth.

Now in its fifth year, the popularity of the MORE FM Winery Tour has seen the run more than double since its inception in 2007; now 19 shows nationwide, adding Dunedin and Cromwell to the existing shows in Matakana, Tutukaka, Auckland, Hamilton, Gisborne, Havelock North, Martinborough, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Tauranga, Taupo, Upper Motuere (Nelson), Blehhiem and Waipara (Christchurch).

For more information on the MORE FM Winery Tour see www.thewinerytour.co.nz.

ENDS

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