On Wednesday 18th August, the Dookie Lions Club held a drumMUSTER collection for the local farming and growing community. It was a big day for the community group run container collection with almost 4,000 agvet containers being brought in for recycling.
Peter McManus is the driving force behind the Dookie drumMUSTER collections. Peter has been instrumental in providing the local community with a recycling pathway for used agvet containers since 2013. To date over 78,000 drums have been returned for recycling through the club.
“In recent months the day has had to be postponed due to COVID, but last week we finally were able to be open for business!!” said Peter.
“Due to the cancellations, we had quite a backlog and no less than 12 growers had phoned to make a booking and be given a check-in time.
“Just after 9am a large semi rolled up and out came 1,140 drums of mixed sizes. Our team of four Lions plus the farmer and driver got stuck into checking, counting and stockpiling the drums. As he left, the next delivery was waiting and so it went all morning with the last delivery arriving just before midday. This was our largest single intake ever, with just under 4,000 drums received for the day. We now have approximately 7,000 drums awaiting pick up by ‘Drums Go Round’ in Moama.”
Local farmer Allan Shields provides the space for the drumMUSTER site on his farm and coordinates the collection days for the area. Many of the Dookie Lions Club members play a role in making the collections a successful event supported by the community. Members such as Bruce Larcombe, Lexi Graham, Paul Sullivan and of course the very important Beverley Wall who makes the scones and arranges the Tea & Coffee for the collection days.
John Knight is the drumMUSTER Regional Consultant for the area and praised the club for their efforts. “The Dookie Lions Club provide a great Community Service by offering a drumMUSTER Collection Day for the Dookie Region.
“All the funds that are raised by the Dookie Lions Club from these drumMUSTER Collections go directly back into benefiting the local community”.
Peter McManus
Agvet chemical manufacturers that participate in the drumMUSTER program pay a levy on their containers to ensure farmers have a responsible end-of-life solution for disposing of their drums. This levy funds the drumMUSTER product stewardship program. Drums are collected and processed on site by a baler or granulator for recycling downstream. To ensure the safety of drumMUSTER inspectors and the processors that collect and process the plastic, drums must be triple rinsed and free of any chemicals.
Peter McManus spoke of how drumMUSTER collections assist the community. “Those of us who are able to assist with drumMUSTER enjoy the camaraderie with each other as well as the delivering farmers. As a Club we appreciate this to be one of our very few opportunities (these days) to make money for the Club, which in turn is distributed to the many community projects we undertake.”
Since 1999, drumMUSTER has collected and recycled almost 38 million agvet containers.