Resource recovery

Waste in Australia (total generation and per capita) continues to grow, driving up GHG emissions and exhausting landfill space. To decouple waste generation from economic growth, Circular Economy is the key.

Waste management in the Pacific often gets neglected in favour of other issues. Donor countries can change that.

FOGO is taking off across Australia. All the more reason to implement stricter, and uniform, compost standards.

Recycling won’t save the earth, but it does make a significant contribution.

Packaging recycling in Australia has some way to go. Both in terms of meeting the national 2025 Waste Targets and in terms of reducing the use of dangerous chemicals and composite materials that pollute and hinder recycling. Government intervention was supposed to help. This has not happened yet.

Now that State Governments are mandating FOGO collections, it is more important than ever to pay attention to the quality of the product and our compost markets.

Starting on 1 July 2025 large food waste generators will no longer be able to send organics to landfill. This major reform will improve resource recovery, create hundreds of jobs, reduce landfill consumption and reduce GHG emissions.

As 2024 comes to an end, Mike Ritchie reflects on the State of Waste in Australia, lays out some basic facts that everyone in the sector should be aware of, and puts forward a to do list for 2025.

In 2018 we set National Packaging Targets with a 2025 horizon. 2025 is upon us. How have we fared?

Isn’t it amazing that the media can so consistently fail to join the dots on climate change?

CDS effectiveness should be measured as the net increase in eligible container capture OVER and ABOVE what would have happened anyway under yellow bin and MRF collection systems. 

Which product stewardship schemes are most effective? Not many!