South Melbourne Market
Leading sustainable transformation for their traders, shoppers, community, and planet.
Since 1867, South Melbourne Market has been a treasured inner-city landmark and a favourite amongst locals and visitors. With over 155 traders, the Market provides a range of offers from quality fresh produce to unique gifts and services.
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The Market is also a destination for ready-to eat food and is host to some of the city’s most popular patisseries, oyster bars and of course, coffee purveyors. From a magic at Clement to Vietnamese iced coffee at Baba’s and a Bombón at La Central Spanish Deli and bodega, there’s a coffee fix for all tastes.
Image: South Melbourne Market
The importance of sustainability at South Melbourne Market
South Melbourne Market recognises that climate change and environmental degradation are pressing global challenges that affect everyone. The Market understands that its operations generate carbon emissions and waste with environmental impacts that extend well beyond its physical footprint.
As a key community hub, the Market acknowledges its responsibility to the local community, the global population, and future generations. In response, it is committed to actively reducing its environmental impact and leading by example.
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To guide this commitment, South Melbourne Market has developed a comprehensive Environmental Sustainability Strategy 2023–2027, outlining 40 targeted actions across three core areas:
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Wipe out waste
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Transition towards a zero-carbon operation
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Reduce water use and impact on water ways
Through this strategy, the Market is working towards a more sustainable future—locally and globally.
Image: Person with reusable shopping bags at South Melbourne Market
Saving paper cups from landfill
Working with Simply Cups is one of the Market’s targeted actions to eliminate waste. With 11 vendors within the precinct, coffee is a popular item at the Market. While some of these are dine in, the vast majority of coffees purchased are single-use and disposed of within the Market precinct.
Through Simply Cups, the Market is able to reduce landfill contribution and disposal cost of the paper cups. It also provides a recycling solution for visitors within the community to bring their single-use takeaway paper cups to the market to recycle them.
Image: Simply Cups collection unit at South Melbourne Market
370,000+
paper cups saved from landfill
*accurate as of 31st March 2025
“I love recycling everything, including my coffee cup. Before the Simply Cups recycling stations were at the Market, my daily coffee cup would just go in the bin – there was nowhere to recycle it. The units are easy to use, one tube for your cup and one for your lid.”
- Clare, a regular coffee drinker and market shopper whose coffee order is a cap with 2 from Burhan’s.
Eliminating waste at South Melbourne Market
The Market aims to divert 85% of its waste from landfill by 2027. The diversion from landfill for the Q4 2024- Q1 2025 was 71.8% and they are seeing a steady improvement year on year.
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They continue to innovate and implement new initiatives to help achieve their waste diversion target. Simply Cups is one of their 16 different recycling streams which turn their waste into a range of new products. Some of these include:
is turned into
Food for aquaculture, pet and livestock industries
Biodiesel
New reefs in Port Phillip Bay that provide a home for sea life
Plastics pellets that are then made into items like pvc pipes
Fertilizer and energy (from methane) that is produced after going through an anerobic digestion process
Tallow and pet food
Asphalt for roads, lightweight concrete products and sustainable building materials.
This waste product
Fish offal
Cooking oil
Oyster and mussel shells
Soft plastics (packaging
bags and clingwrap)
Organics food waste
Meat offal
Paper Cups (recycled with Simply Cups)
Restoring Shellfish reefs with The Nature Conservancy
The Market is also a strong supporter of Shuck Don't Chuck, which is an initiative by B-Alternative and The Nature Conservancy that recycles the Market’s oyster, mussel and scallop shells. The shells are collected from the Market, cured and then used in reef restoration projects in Port Phillip Bay. Since 2015, The Nature Conservancy's Port Phillip Bay project has:
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Restored over 12 hectares of reef (that's about the size of six MCGs!)
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Recycled over 700 tonnes of shells
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Built 49 new shellfish reefs across four locations.
Image: Shuck Don't Chuck initiative
Other initiatives
Rainwater capture
The Market has a 500,000 litre rainwater tank in the York Street carpark that collects water from the rooftop. The water is solar-treated and used for wash-down applications by their florists and to flush the toilets.
Renewable energy production
100% of the Market's electricity is generated from renewable sources. The Market has a 234kW PV solar panel system installed on the carpark's roof, generating approximately 33% of the Market's electricity.  The remainder of the Market’s electricity is generated by wind farms at Crowlands, a small agricultural community north of Ararat.
EV chargers
There are two electric vehicle (EV) charging stations available in the rooftop carpark and are free of charge to EV drivers.
Consumer education
In addition to their day-to-day efforts, the Market has implemented a range of consumer education campaigns to help promote sustainability such as “Sustainable September” to encourage environmentally sustainable shopping, and “Reduce Single-Use” campaign to encourage customers to bring reusable items for all their shopping.
“We’re leading a transformation of the environmental impact of your Market;
for our traders, our shoppers, our community, our planet.”
- South Melbourne Market’s sustainability commitment statement
Learn more about South Melbourne Market’s commitmment to sustainability here.
This page was last updated in May 2025.