Creating the Reuse and Recycle Hubs

The City of Adelaide is committed to making the recovery of tricky to recycle items more convenient.

In September 2022, the City of Adelaide installed the first two Hubs and are proud to have worked with University of South Australia students who designed and developed the Hubs as part of their respective Masters degrees in Industrial Design.

‘Our customer is the City of Adelaide, but this project is for the whole of society. A lot of house holds and residents are not able to recycle small items and those items will just go to the landfill. Its not good for the environment so City of Adelaide came up with this project and we designed these Recycle and Re-Use hubs.’ - Qiujie, product designer.

10 08 5

Andrew Whittaker, Qiujie and Shengkai's lecturer in Industrial Design at the University of South Australia, shared his sentiment to be able to collaborate with the City of Adelaide on this project.

‘The exciting thing here is the opportunity to collaborate with City of Adelaide and the University of South Australia to actually construct these units, and they’ll actually be working units that’ll be going into the field. Going from not just a concept on a computer screen but to actual physical useable objects is amazing.’

Many of the items placed in the Hubs will be donated and reused, for example the eye-glasses or sunglasses that will be refurbished and gifted to people in need around the world through the Lions Recycle for Sight Program.

View the full list items that can be recycled and learn more about the process.

Where are the hubs located?

There are four hubs available for residents:

  • City of Adelaide Customer Centre, 25 Pirie Street, Adelaide
  • City Library, 3 Rundle Place, 77-91 Rundle Mall, Adelaide
  • North Adelaide Library, 176 Tynte Street, North Adelaide
  • Minor Works Building Community Centre, 22 Stamford Court, Adelaide