The original Ollie Recycles CD ROM and Web site Program was created in Victoria Australia in 1997.
It was developed by a panel of educationalists, a group of environmentalists and a team of experts in multimedia. Their aim was to create an interactive environmental education program for the community that encouraged teachers, parents and children to examine the questions of waste minimisation, litter prevention, resource recovery and recycling within the context of local conditions and the local school curriculum.
The original program was supported by Visy Recycling, www.visyrecycling.com.au EcoRecycle http://www.ecorecycle.vic.gov.au and the Beverage Industry Environment Council. http://www.biec.com.au Each of these groups understood the importance of educating the community about sustainable waste management and saw the tremendous benefits in delivering this message through an engaging multimedia format.
The goal was to join together industry groups, community groups and locally active individuals concerned with the issues of waste
minimization, resource recovery and recycling, and offer them a combined and co-ordinated education program which was both cost effective and modern in its approach.
The first Ollie Recycles Program was supported by an extensive distribution campaign which saw every school in Victoria receive a free
copy of the program during the launch month of June.
This was further supported by extensive dissemination and promotional activities that created awareness in the program and the benefits of its use in the school classroom.
With international expansion of the Ollie Recycles Program, the creators of the program felt it time to update the Australian version
of Ollie and his friends and extend both the content of the program and its multimedia delivery. The original Ollie Recycles Program has became a standard in environmental education in primary schools across
Victoria. Now the task ahead is to consolidate this position with the new program and extend its reach into all primary schools across Australia.
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