Latest articles

WMAA is hosting a Breakfast Seminar on Monday, 25 May on weight based charging opportunities and issues in the commercial sector. The issue of weight based charging (WBC) is on the agenda. Commercial waste bin collection is currently a volume based charging system and not weight based. How would a WBC system impact the waste […]

Article written by Jacqueline Ong and originally published by Inside Waste Is there a compelling case for councils to go down the FOGO path? For NSW at least, the government is supportive of increasing organic diversion rates and has put its money where its mouth is with the Waste Less Recycle More initiative. MRA Consulting […]

The NSW EPA’s risk-based licensing system commences on 1 July 2015. The goal of Risk Based Licensing is to allocate the maximum EPA resources to those sites that pose the greatest environmental risk and less to those that do not. The EPA intends to conduct an environmental Risk Assessment for each licenced site in NSW […]

There has been much said recently about the need to use nuclear energy as a bridging technology while renewable technologies and battery systems in particular, are improved. It seems to me that waste and recycling have again been overlooked as serious contributors to Australia’s emission abatement task. In 2006 Warnken ISE and SITA Australia published […]

“MRA has once again emerged the winner in the Inside Waste Consultants Review” said Jacqueline Ong the Editor of Inside Waste. The annual survey asks stakeholders from local, State and Federal government, the commercial sector, consultancies and private sector waste generators who they think are Australia’s waste experts and why. The review assessed the market […]

Australia generates 48 MT/year of waste (latest National Waste Data Report 2014). In the period 1997-2012 our population rose by 22% but waste generation increased by 145%. There are more of us and we generate more waste per person, each year. On the positive side, recycling is growing at a faster rate and since 2005 […]

Rules to exclude Waste Less Recycle More (WLRM) projects from the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) dumped. All WLRM projects are free to participate in the ERF and to generate carbon credits. The Department of the Environment has yesterday published its Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Rule 2015 instrument that will guide the ERF first auction. […]

The QLD election has seen the ALP achieve one of the biggest swings in Australia’s political history. ALP QLD has officially secured 44 seats, giving it the required number to form a minority government. Annastacia Palaszcuk, Labor Premier and Steven Miles, the new QLD Environment Minister now have the task of revitalising the QLD recycling […]

If you stash a handful of plastic bags in the cupboard after your weekly supermarket shop, then this article is for you. The NSW Greens have announced an election pledge to ban the single use plastic shopping bag. Many other States and Territories have already gone down that path via bans or 10 cent fees. […]

Greenhouse Warming Potential (GWP) review will unlock up to 20% additional abatement potential for the waste sector – but only if accounted for accurately in project proponents’ ERF bid. Forecasting carbon abatement from waste activities can be very complex. Abatement is always defined against a hypothetical landfill emissions baseline that can be affected by a […]

Blink and you missed it. This month the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology released the updated State of the Climate report 2014. It is the update on climate change research from Australia’s independent scientific and weather authorities. And it is sobering reading. I find it amazing that our leading scientific bodies can make, what are […]

A review of WA’s Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Act 2007 (WARR Act) is set to create an opportunity for new recovery infrastructure in Perth. The WARR Act is the principal legislation for waste management in Western Australia. It is subject to a statutory review within five years of its commencement. Starting in July 2008, […]