We have some news that will make you extra excited for your next COVID-safe picnic or Sunday BBQ: a beer clip reuse and recycling scheme has launched in Australia.

Beer drinkers can dispose of hard plastic clips in units at select BWS and Dan Murphy's stores around Australia. The clips are then picked up by breweries for reuse or, when they are no longer useable, recycled to make brand new beer clips.

"Many beer lovers are familiar with the can clips that hold four and six packs of brews together, but many don't realise that the clips are made of such sturdy material that they can be reused more than 50 times before being recycled and made into new clips," Diarmaid o'Mordha from Endeavour Group, the retailer behind the scheme, told Packaging News.

"Can clips are a great option for a circular economy, but there have been no multi-state recycling options available for customers where they can return the clips, so many end up in landfill, which is why we have initiated this industry-wide reuse and recycling scheme."

The weight and black colour of these clips mean they can't be recycled through kerbside services. Endevour Group teamed up with Visy Recycling and PakTach — a company that makes beer clips from 100 per cent recycled content — to create a recycling solution for these products. When the clips reach the end of their lifespan, they are sent to Visy to be converted into HDPE resin and then to PakTech where this material is used to make new beer clips.

The scheme also takes things a step further by going higher up the waste hierarchy to enable reuse and keep these products in circulation for as long as possible. This generates savings for the environment as well as the independent breweries that collect and reuse the packaging.

So next time you picnic, save your beer rings and return them to store.

Positive Environment News has been compiled using publicly available information. Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes.