Sircel’s woes expose product stewardship failures

By: Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group

Sircel Limited, our biggest solar panel recycler, has just gone into administration because of a lack of leadership on Product Stewardship.

How many times does industry need to tell governments to act and to secure supply streams for recycling over cheap landfills?

Product Stewardship legislation has been promised for 20 years and still nothing (except the very limp Australian Packaging Covenant which requires companies to be members of a scheme but not actually to do, or pay for, any recycling).

It is pathetic. 

Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt has inherited the task. But both sides or politics are responsible for this continuing failure. 

It is rightly the responsibility of the Australian Government to set up a consistent national arrangement (but they regularly squib doing so by suggesting the States have responsibility for waste management). Porkies.

After 20 years of Federal “Minister’s Lists” threatening regulation on specific materials (think packaging, polystyrene, solar panels, batteries, mattresses, clothing, etc) not a single mandatory scheme has been established. 

Responsible companies and industry associations have tried setting up voluntary schemes but most are abject failures with an average recovery rate of just 6% of materials placed on market. That means 94% is still being landfilled.

It is cheaper to do so.

Darren Johannesen from the Smart Energy Council says exactly that for solar panels.

At the same time rural councils are worried that their landfills are going to be filled with dumped solar panels. It is one of the major concerns with the Energy Transition and one reason many rural councils oppose renewables. 

It is so easily fixed. 

We must have proper mandatory schemes set up under the current RAWR Act. 

There is no need for new legislation, no need for massive debates. It is a wholly good idea with almost no detractors.

Minister Watt you just need to prioritise it to your Department. 

The recycling, landfill, renewables, local government, employment and economic growth sectors, will all back you.

Mike Ritchie is the Managing Director at MRA Consulting Group.

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