Landfill

Open letter to Leanne Linard QLD Minister for Environment

NSW is heading away from a circular economy. The latest National Waste Report data shows that not only is NSW total waste generation growing but our waste to landfill is also growing.

We keep hearing and reading (what we think are) “waste myths” on-line and on mainstream media. Mike Ritchie has embarked on a "Waste myths" series of articles to dispel as many myths as possible.

By: Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group In 2019, Australia’s environment ministers and the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) agreed to the National Waste Policy and Action Plan (NWPAP). For the first time, all Governments were committing to collective action on recycling, waste management and the creation of a more Circular Economy. Our governments finally agreed […]

I wish landfills were net carbon sinks that we could rely on to store organics. Landfills are significant GHG emitters. They sequester some carbon but not enough.

Australia generates 61.5 MT of “core” waste. Of this, 20.5 MT is sent to landfill.

Australians want to take care of the environment. We have set a national resource recovery target of 80% by 2030. How do we achieve these goals? Well, we cannot go wrong with a nationwide landfill levy.

Landfill levies may be blunt instruments but they have also shown their effectiveness in Australia. Waste generators have a binary decision to make. Recycle or landfill. More often than not, it comes down to price. To meet our 80% diversion from landfill target, we need to make the answer to that question simple and ever present.

Waste is like a river that flows downhill to the cheapest price. Landfills are like big vacuum cleaners - they suck up waste and resources indiscriminately. If we continue to supply cheaply priced landfills, then that is where our waste will go. There will always be a place for well-run landfills. But if we want to create a circular economy, then the first and most obvious thing we need to do, is stop the one-way flow into landfills.

Getting a planning approval for a waste facility is a long and excruciating process, especially in NSW. Now, the NSW Government is trying to combat the economic downturn brought about by COVID-19 by cutting down red-tape to speed up the planning process and stimulate the construction industry.

Everyone working in waste and recycling knows that getting a planning approval for a waste facility is a long and excruciating process, especially in NSW. Mike Ritchie looks at why this is the case and puts forward 3 ideas for NSW to get its mojo back.

Following up on his earlier Circular Economy article, Mike Ritchie reviews the European Union Circular Economy Action Plan report of 54 actions and adjusts those actions to propose an equivalent action list for Australia.