ycle old cookware. And according to Kitchen Warehouse, if 7000 pans were stacked on top of each other they’d reach over 700 metres into the sky. A team effort There has been an uptick in retailers embracing and encouraging product circularity but until now the trend has been primarily led by the fashion industry. The CEO of Banksia Foundation, Graz Van Egmond, views The Great Pan Exchange as an innovation from the homewares sector and believes it to be a prime example of a retailer taking real action on sustainability. “This exchange program highlights that no matter how daunting the challenge, solutions are out there,” Van Egmond stated. Tefal, a leading global brand in cookware, has partnered with Kitchen Warehouse to give consumers access to premium products at a lower cost simply by dropping off their old pots and pans.  In an effort to incentivise more consumers to take part in The Great Pan Exchange, Tefal is offering participating customers 10 per cent off select purchases every time they recycle pots and pans destined for landfill. This partnership between Kitchen Warehouse and Tefal is a prime example of a retailer and a brand working with customers to shift sustainability practices. The Great Pan Exchange is bridging consumers’ desires to be both budget-savvy during the cost-of-living crisis and eco-conscious amidst the climate crisis. Seeing is believing  For Simon Lamplough, Kitchen Warehouse’s chief customer officer, this exchange program ticks both of those boxes; giving customers a way to access premium products at a discount while being able to dispose of their old cookware in a sustainable way. “We know price is a big factor which drives consumer choice when buying cookware,” said Lamplough. “But if you need to replace that pot every few years, it’s not only costing the customer more; it comes at a cost to the planet,” he added. According to Kitchen Warehouse, Australians spend an estimated $988 million on cookware each year – and with the average lifespan of a pot or pan being only three years, consumers could potentially reduce their household cost and waste by investing in quality products. To help demonstrate the scale of Australia’s waste issue, Kitchen Warehouse commissioned an art installation titled “High Fryer”. The industrial sculpture has been unveiled at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens to allow consumers to imagine what that full-size tower of thrown-out pots and pans would look like. “High Fryer” was conceptualised by Perth-based creative agency Berlin, whose creative managing partners John Linton and Berney said the inspiration for the art installation came from wanting to create a visual metaphor for the mind-boggling quantity of waste being generated. “To launch The Great Pan Exchange we needed a strategy that was going to create impact, so we couldn’t just announce that Kitchen Warehouse had these collection points, there’s just too much going on in people’s lives to think about another thing they had to do to help the environment, we wanted them to love the issue, to care about the issue and really be grabbed by it,” explained Linton. Kitchen Warehouse is hoping that the marketing supporting The Great Pan Exchange not only drives awareness but also sales. “We want to encourage households to bring in their old pots to our stores and in return, we’ll reward them with a discount on new, longer-lasting cookware from Tefal,” Lamplough concluded.