Landfill
4 June 2015
By Mike Ritchie Landfill gate fees typically cover costs of operation, overheads, mobile plant and equipment, labour, depreciation costs of roads and buildings and other fixed assets and profit. But the costs (and therefore the gate fee), also need to include 30-50 year post closure management, long term monitoring and reporting, and importantly replacement of […]
Compost
1 June 2015
From a media release by Noosa Council, originally published here. A waste industry heavyweight, Mike Ritchie, was one of two speakers Noosa’s community Jury heard from at its fourth meeting, held this week. Mr Ritchie, who has more than 25 years of experience in waste management, accepted the Jury’s invitation to present via video link from […]
Carbon
3 May 2015
One of the key features of the Emissions Reduction Fund is that projects need to be “new” at the time of registration. From July 1st, only “paper projects” (projects in concept phase up to and including a completed design but without a formal decision to go ahead) will be allowed to participate. That is, if […]
Carbon
27 April 2015
Published by ResourceRecovery.biz The winners during the first Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) auction have been announced. Congratulations to those who succeeded in securing a Carbon Abatement Contract with the Federal Government and commiserations to those who missed out. But don’t despair: there are many more auctions to come. Under the ERF, the Federal Government is […]
FOGO
17 April 2015
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 […]
Licencing
30 March 2015
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 […]
Carbon
18 February 2015
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. […]
Strategy
18 February 2015
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 […]
Policy
6 February 2015
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. […]
Strategy
23 December 2014
The Northern Territory EPA has released its inaugural Waste Strategy. While the strategy is a great first step for the region, there is still much more to be done. But first, let’s talk about the context for the strategy. The NT has a number of characteristics which make it unique. It has a very a […]
Carbon
18 December 2014
Waste and environment consultancy MRA has launched a new service to help councils benefit from the Emissions Reduction Fund. The service will involve MRA acting on behalf of councils to help them prepare and make ERF bids for landfill abatement projects. Environment Minister Greg Hunt has high hopes for these sorts of aggregation schemes, which […]
Carbon
14 November 2014
With the Emissions Reduction Fund passing the Senate, industry can expect a 15-fold increase in scale of emissions reductions projects. The Emissions Reduction Fund is national scheme which provides $2.55 billion over three years to purchase emissions reductions. This $2.55 billion is budgeted to cover 2014-15 to 2017-18. Based on the average budget expenditure, this […]