Woodford Folk Festival 2025–26 has reached a record-breaking sustainability milestone, with festivalgoers and volunteers helping save more than 120,000 drink containers from landfill.

It’s the biggest container collection the festival has ever achieved, smashing last year’s impressive total of 90,000 containers!

Since partnering with Containers for Change in 2022, Woodfordia, the organisation behind the festival, has now collected more than 340,000 containers, turning 10-cent refunds into on-ground environmental action.

So far, more than $34,000 in container refunds has been reinvested into projects that protect and regenerate the land. This includes on-site conservation work, nursery operations and volunteer-powered initiatives like the Treehuggers and Conservatree programs.
 

How Woodfordia made record recycling happen

This year, more than 200 bright green Containers for Change bins were placed across the festival grounds to make recycling easy for patrons.

Every eligible container was collected by local operator Express Recycling, before being processed at their Burpengary depot.

Woodfordia Site Manager Chris Shervey said the record result was powered by improved waste operations and the commitment of festivalgoers and volunteers alike.

“Thank you to our loyal festivalgoers for doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, and to our more than 110 Garbology volunteers who put their heart into helping patrons recycle correctly,” Mr Shervey said.

“From our ‘Container Reclaimers’ retrieving misplaced containers, to our ‘Magpies’ playfully guiding people to use the correct bins, every volunteer helped make this our most successful year yet.”

A partnership that keeps growing

Express Recycling Manager Nikki Mullen said the result reflects the strength of their ongoing partnership between Express Recycling and Woodfordia.

“Woodfordia genuinely leads by example when it comes to sustainability,” Ms Mullen said.

"Their systems, volunteers and culture make large-scale recycling work, and we’re proud to work closely with their team year after year to help turn community effort into real, measurable environmental outcomes."

Why it all matters

Woodford Folk Festival’s record-breaking result shows the impact small actions can have when thousands of people get involved.

Whether it’s at a festival, a stadium, a market or on a day out, choosing to recycle your eligible container means it can be turned into something new instead of ending up in landfill.

And with a 10-cent refund for every eligible container, those simple choices can also help support local charities, community groups and environmental projects, just like the ones helping Woodfordia turn trash into trees.

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