Waste

Almost two years on from a landmark pledge by state and federal environment ministers to take decisive action on packaging waste, Australia is still waiting for meaningful reform.

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.

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.

NSW has some way to go to hit the 2030 National Waste Targets. To do so, it needs a lot of new waste infrastructure. Mike Ritchie takes a look at the types and number of facilities needed.

As 2024 comes to an end, Mike Ritchie makes a wishlist for 2025.

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?