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Queensland recently released its 2016 Waste and Recycling Report. The report refers to a number of incremental gains in landfill diversion, but the headline number is the 40% leap in the tonnes of waste received at Queensland landfills from interstate.

This year’s Waste Conference had the largest array of exhibitors than any year before. MRA’s Charlotte Wang visited 45 exhibitors to get a feel for what’s up and coming in the waste collection and processing sector.

The Waste 2017 conference has been and gone, running from 2-4 May at Opal Cove Resort in Coffs Harbour. It was an exceptionally well attended conference, attracting over 550 delegates from around Australia to three days of proceedings.

By MRA Consulting Group Inside Waste published (March 2017) the results of its annual consultants survey, and MRA has swept the field. Of the six services offerings considered, MRA was judged by its clients to be the best small consultant in Australia for five. And the second best in the sixth. Our clients were resounding […]

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group The Australian State of the Environment (SoE) 2016 Overview was tabled in Parliament on 7 March 2017. The previous SoE was in 2011. The SoE concludes that: “Despite an overall increase in waste generation, Australia’s total disposal tonnage decreased from about 21.5 megatonnes to about 19.5 megatonnes (about 9.5 […]

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group Product Stewardship (PS) schemes are one of several ways to drive waste out of landfill and back into the productive economy. They “encourage” industry to fund the collection and recycling of their goods once they reach the end of their productive life. Products which lend themselves to PS systems […]

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group The east coast of Australia suffered through a severe heatwave a few weeks ago. To borrow the phrase, a single heatwave is no more evidence of climate change, than a single swallow is of summer. The evidence for climate change doesn’t neatly announce itself through a particular weather event. […]

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group Australians use an estimated 5 billion single use plastic bags (supb’s) per year. Sounds like a lot but this represents only about 20,000 tonnes of plastic or 0.04% of the waste generated in Australia per year. If all of these plastic bags go to landfill they represent just 0.1% […]

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group Despite clear and overwhelming evidence that our climate is changing right now, the appetite for action at a political level is diminishing. In Australia, the Climate Council was defunded, the carbon tax abolished, and a general sense seems to be settling in that climate change doesn’t really matter. Globally […]

By Adi Prasad, MRA Consulting Group Phase one of the Waste Less Recycle More (WLRM) funding package by the NSW Government has awarded $292.3 million of funding to 822 projects to date. These projects aim to process 2,230,167 tonnes of waste previously destined for landfill and create 845 jobs. The infrastructure package comprises the largest […]

by MRA Consulting Group As the NSW EPA’s WLRM extension has been announced, many grant packages are winding down, however there are still a few grant streams that are open: Resource Recovery Facility Expansion and Enhancement ($13.9million awarded to date); Organics Market Development – Stream 1: Product Quality ($189,000 awarded to date); and Community Litter […]

By Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group Our waste problems are urgent. Waste is pouring out of the economy at 6.3% compound average growth rate. Waste volumes double every 12 years. Most Australian States and Territories have set recycling targets for 2020/21. For MSW the diversion target is generally 65-70% (except in the ACT where it’s […]