Waste

Projections show Australia is very unlikely to meet its current 2030 carbon reduction targets, with recent reports of increasing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from all sectors other than the electricity and agriculture industries. Australia needs to do more and the waste and recycling sector can lead the charge in emissions reduction.

One billion single use coffee cups are sent to landfill every year. Sounds like a lot but this represents less than 0.0004% of the waste generated in Australia per year. So, what can we do to deal with coffee cups so that we can focus on significant streams like organics (particularly food), which represent around 50% of all waste to landfill in Australia?

MRA's Mike Ritchie was invited to join the Ideas 2170 panel run by Liverpool City Council and Western Sydney University at WSU’s CBD campus on 19 November 2019. Mike and the panel discussed key waste streams and options for improving waste management outcomes for local councils.

The Australian Commonwealth has achieved a first. A Minister for Waste (and Environmental Management) was announced by the Morrison Government. In the 200 years since colonial settlement we have not had a Minister with Waste in their title. I hope that ushers in a period of attention and reform.

If you are dealing with asbestos waste in NSW, take notice. The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal has handed down a decision which confirms that any waste containing asbestos is asbestos waste endorsing all of the EPA interpretations of the POEO Act.

If you are dealing with recyclables and have $100 million annual revenue, the Act applies to you as of January 2019

MRA’s Mike Ritchie was featured on the cover of Waste Management Review having been interviewed on the waste sector’s contribution to national emissions and its role in meeting Australia’s commitment to the Paris Agreement.

Mike Ritchie attended the 2019 Australian Landfills and Transfer Stations Conference and delivered a presentation on how differences in legislation, targets and data between states is hindering resource recovery in Australia.

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.

With landfill levies in NSW at $140.20/t you would think that sorting of commercial waste would be more common than it is. Less than 5% of the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) waste in NSW is put through a processing plant to recover the valuable materials. In other words, less than 120,000t of the 5.5 MT that is generated is put through a processing plant. There are no dedicated C&I sorting facilities in other States (and landfill levies are lower).

MRA is actively engaging in the waste management debate and this week has seen two of our own being extensively quoted on national newspapers. The Financial Review has reported on MRA's submission to the ACCC on the proposed merging of Bingo and DADI, quoting Mike Ritchie on the expected positive outcomes of the merger in terms of improved recovery rates for C&I waste in Sydney.

According to the 2016 National Waste Report, Commercial and Industrial waste (C&I) represents 20 MT of the 53 MT of waste generated in Australia (or 40% of generation). It also represents 34% of all waste sent to landfill (or 7.2MT out of 21MT) and achieves a 64% recovery rate compared to C&D (64%) and MSW (51%). Not bad in the scheme of things.