MSW

It has now been over a year since China introduced its National Sword policy to restrict the importation of kerbside recyclable materials from the rest of the world. The purpose of the policy was to increase the recovery of domestically generated recyclables within China and further boost its own manufacturing. The new rule is a 0.5% contamination rate in Australian exported material. Few Australian Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF) were built for that level of purity.

By Mike Ritchie – Director, MRA Consulting Group On 16 February 2016, the Australian population reached 24 million people. Waste generation rates are a function of population growth, the level of urbanisation and per capita income[i] and Australians now produce about 50 million tonnes of waste each year, averaging over 2 tonnes per person. There […]

Voluntary action by every individual helps to grow recycling rates; an extra milk bottle in the recycling bin; installing a home composting system, all contribute. Australia leads the world in household recycling rates. In the business sector most of the economically viable streams are already being recycled (cardboard, paper, metals and plastic) although there is […]

South Australia’s suggested waste management reforms as set out in ‘Reforming waste management – Creating certainty for an industry to grow’ discusses the concept of ‘Pay as you throw’ or ‘Save as you throw’ variable rate pricing for waste services. The basics are to provide variable pricing based on the volume of the bin or […]

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 […]

Important changes were recently introduced by the Protection of Environment Operations (Waste) Regulation 2014. These have considerably reduced the threshold levels for the holding of an Environmental Protection Licence (EPL) for certain waste activities e.g. processing, recovery and storage of waste. The new requirements mean that some existing waste businesses that were not previously required […]

A recent case in the NSW Land and Environment Court has highlighted the discord between NSW’s planning laws and the environmental protection laws, which could impact the way that waste and recycling processers are approved and regulated. After much advocacy by the waste and recycling sectors, the Government in 2007 introduced the State Environmental Planning […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]