The Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC) has found that data is key to increasing the recovery of household waste and recycling, planning services and education programs, and why bin targets might not be attainable.
SSROC has finalised its eighth, and most comprehensive yet, audit of 2,444 households, sampling 7,471 red-, yellow- and green-lidded bins to help identify trends in recovery and where further education is needed. In addition, SSROC also audited 698 piles of booked and scheduled clean-up collections to better understand what households throw out and improve recovery of these materials.
SSROC has been coordinating waste audits of kerbside services for its member councils since 1999, with one of the best longitudinal household waste data sets in Australia. In the past year, 11 SSROC councils audited household bins and eight of these councils also audited bulky waste piles.
Outcomes
In the general waste bin (red-lidded bin), loose food waste is the largest individual category at 30 per cent, which is consistent with previous audits.
However, there has been a growing amount of food and liquid left in containers (12 per cent of the red bin) and thrown in the bin, some of these are recyclable containers that if emptied and placed in the recycling bin could have been recovered.
About 11.6 per cent of general waste is material that should be in the recycling bins, 2.5 per cent is garden organics (GO) that should be in the green waste bin, and 1.2 per cent of general waste is items that should be diverted to e-waste or hazardous waste services provided. While hazardous items only make up 1.2 percent it only takes one battery in a bin to start a fire. Batteries incorrectly thrown into kerbside bins are causing on average three fires a week in NSW.
Overall, the audit showed an increase in the amount of difficult-to-recover materials placed in the red bin including contaminated paper, soft plastics (7.4 per cent), nappies (6.9 per cent) and textiles (4.6 per cent). Fourteen per cent of that 4.6 per cent is wearable clothing that could have been reused instead of thrown away.
These figures highlight the need for greater stewardship of these materials by producers.
The recycling bin mostly consists of recyclable paper (42.5 per cent) and recyclable containers (37.7 per cent), with an average of 19.7 per cent contamination although many councils have lower rates of contamination. Trends data shows that the amount of recoverable material in the recycling bin has declined with the introduction of the NSW Container Deposit Scheme and the digitisation of news, making it harder to increase recovery.
The top five contaminants in the recycling bin include:
1. Bagged material at 4.6 per cent. This includes both bagged garbage at 2.6 per cent, as well as bagged recycling 2 per cent – recycling that is placed in bags into the recycling bin but cannot be separated at the processing facility due to safety risks, so it is classed as contamination whatever the content.
2. Contaminated paper (4.6 per cent) such as wet or soiled paper or cardboard, food takeaway bags.
3. Other plastics. Mostly hard plastics that cannot be recycled, 1.2 per cent.
4. Textiles/carpet (1.2 per cent)
5. Composite materials. Mostly paper, containerised food and liquid, and plastic film all at 0.9 per cent each.
Despite decades of recycling education, we still have a long way to go to get households to place only loose recyclable containers and packaging in the recycling bin and to ensure that products sold in Australia have packaging that can easily be recycled in Australia.
The garden organics bin (green-lidded bin) has consistently been over 96 per cent acceptable vegetation and consistently had a very low contamination rate.
SSROC councils audited clean-up collections in 2014 and again last year, yet both times the largest component of clean-up waste was furniture representing almost third of clean up piles (28.8 per cent by weight). Fifty-four per cent of this furniture was deemed suitable for reuse had the resident donated, sold or passed on the furniture instead of putting it in the clean-up collection.
The next largest components of clean up piles by weight are wood (12.2 per cent), plastic (6.7 per cent), metal (6.4 per cent), white goods and electrical (5.4 per cent), e-waste (5.3 per cent), paper and cardboard (4.7 per cent), textiles (4.5 per cent), general waste (4.5 per cent), and several smaller categories.
The state government target for household waste is a diversion of 80 per cent materials from landfill. These audits are only a sample at a point in time, yet they show that we are not halfway there with an average diversion rate of 37 per cent.
Even when some of the loose food is recovered through upcoming food and garden organics roll outs, Australia will still be a long way from this target.
“Over time, we can see that the amount of recoverable material has declined yet we have seen an increase in products on the market that cannot be easily repaired or recycled in Australia,” said Helen Sloan, SSROC CEO. “We simply cannot recycle our way out of this mess, and we will not reach diversion targets without major interventions to design waste out of products and packaging.
“If we want to progress to a circular economy, we need the Federal Government to implement tougher measures to ensure that products placed on the Australian market can be recycled and are sold in recyclable packaging.
“We also need incentives for manufacturers and brands to make their products easier to repair and provide convenient take back collections for consumers. This is important for all products but especially bulky ones like furniture, whitegoods and other electrical goods, mattresses and textiles, as these products can’t be recycled easily once placed on the kerb and create safety issues in our streets and roads.”