Published December 2024
Shirley Sheftz spends hours “dumpster diving” every day to salvage items to recycle, which has won her the WasteSMART Local Legend Award.
76-year-old Ms Sheftz said she regularly donates goods to a range of places, including a pet rescue centre, a religious institute, the New Farm Neighbourhood Centre, shops and individuals in need.
The list goes on and on.
Three years ago, she started collecting cans to raise money for her grandson who was studying in London.
During the process, she said: “I saw all the waste and that’s why I started doing it (the salvaging).”
Now she has salvaged 300,000 containers for Containers for Change.
“The things you can find are amazing. People don’t always recycle, they throw it down the chute. It’s sad,” she said.
Ms Sheftz once found wool scraps in the bin and gave it to craft groups, who turned the wool into colourful clothing which was donated to charities.
She started to collect other items like toiletries when her friend was volunteering for homeless people.
In Skyring Apartments where Shirley lives, she occupies a corner in the rubbish collection area.
Ms Sheftz stores the items she collected there, cleans them, and delivers them to different places with her husband Pepsi every fortnight.
“Everything that’s household, we accumulate, we load it on the trailer and we take it all the way to Manly West to a place called Silky Oaks. It helps children of the state,” she said.
Even though her grandson no longer needs her financial support, she continues what she does because she enjoys it.
“I’m retired. I’d rather be in the bin room than on my phone or my iPad. It keeps me moving,” Ms Sheftz said.
“My children live in South Africa, they said ‘Mum we tell everybody you dumpster dive, we are so proud of you.’
“And I’m proud of myself. I’ve got something in life that has meaning,” she said.
