Earth day 2025

By: Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group

Today is Earth Day and a good opportunity to think about ways to protect our environment.

Australia is a nation of recyclers.

We currently recycle 37 Million tonnes of material every year. That is 61% of all waste generated. The remaining 27MT goes to landfill.

That 37 MT of recycling has huge environmental benefits:

1. It avoids about 40mt CO2e emissions because it is so much more efficient to make products out of recycled material than virgin raw materials. In the case of aluminium there is a 95% energy saving by using recycled aluminium cans to make the next can, instead of virgin bauxite.
2. It saves resources. The best example is pulp to make paper. Recycling reduces forest losses by recovering over 70% of all paper and cardboard in the economy. The energy and forest savings are significant (although most paper is made from plantation softwoods now, native forest is cleared to make way for the plantations). The same is true for glass, plastic, metals, concrete etc
3. Recycling avoids landfill. 3% of Australia’s direct greenhouse emissions come from landfills. When we put food and vegetation into landfills it decomposes anaerobically and generates methane. Methane is between 28 and 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It is a massive contributor to Climate Change. Recycling organic waste as compost or a source of Green Energy is so much smarter and better for the planet.
4. Finally, recycling, like solar panels and green power is something we can all do. If we get our recycling right we could reduce Australia’s 480mt of greenhouse gas emissions per year by 10% or about an additional 50MT CO2e. That is massive.

So keep recycling. 

Mike Ritchie is the Managing Director at MRA Consulting Group.