Waste and recycling reform is on the move. The Federal Government has announced it will revive the National Waste Strategy by the end of 2018. As part of the discussion on strategic direction I thought it would be useful to go back and revisit a previous strategic review and see what we have achieved (or not) in NSW. To put it another way, while there is a lot of movement at present, is the movement achieving the main priorities?

MRA's Mike Ritchie was very pleased to have been invited to contribute to the Environmental Professionals Forum's (EPF) UnEaten Matters evening on the 8th of August. Mike moderated a panel of professionals to discuss the complexities of food waste.

ABC's latest War on Waste series has recently concluded and it has been a resounding success. This year the spotlight has been turned to plastic water bottles, straws, e-waste, fast furniture, the recycling crisis and food waste. On that last front, MRA's Mike Ritchie made an appearance to talk about why we need Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) services across the nation.

The NSW EPA has released the sixth round of the Organics Infrastructure (Large and Small) Program grant under the $337 million Waste Less Recycle More Initiative, 2014-17 (WLRM) extension.

At a recent meeting with Local Government Mayors and CEO’s, a claim was made that transporting organics by truck to a distant compost facility (in this case 150km away) would emit more greenhouse gases than landfilling it locally. Thinking that the carbon forcing factor of methane from landfill (25 times CO2) would render that claim incorrect, I thought I should go back and check the maths.

MRA is happy to announce that for a third round in a row, it has been awarded a Bin Trim grant by the NSW EPA. In this, third round of Bin Trim, MRA secured the single largest grant between all 16 successful grantees. Our goal is to build upon our partnerships and networks to assist businesses across multiple industry sectors within the Sydney region to increase their recycling by 20%.

The NSW EPA has opened round 1 of its $4.5M Product Improvement Program grants under the $48M Waste and Recycling Infrastructure Fund of the NSW Government Waste Less Recycle More initiative (WLRM).

MRA has been successful in assisting clients win over 50% of the grant funding available under the NSW EPA Waste Less Recycle More grants program for Resource Recovery Facility Expansion and Enhancement. Of the eight successful grant funding applications, MRA prepared four of the submissions and secured more than $2m in funding from the $3.7m awarded.

MRA has been successful in securing $3.5m for two projects under the Waste Less Recycle More Major Resource Recovery Infrastructure Program, securing funding for Albury City Council and Tyrecycle.

Following Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s announcement back in March 20th, the Queensland Government released for public consultation a directions paper on the State’s recycling and waste industry.

The NSW EPA has just announced the solid and liquid waste levy rates for 2018/19. In accordance with Clause 11 of the Protection of the Environment Operations (Waste) Regulation 2014, all levies have been only adjusted for inflation (Consumer Price Index).

MRA is excited to announce our donation of 200 hours of pro bono consulting services to Waste Aid Australia, an Australian not-for-profit organisation formed in response to the lack of adequate waste management services in remote and disadvantaged communities.