This year has shaped up to be one of the busiest years yet on the waste and resource recovery calendar – arguably the most pivotal since China’s National Sword policy jolted Australia into reality back in 2018. Ironically, much of the busyness stems not from unbridled progress, but from the constant need to stop ourselves sliding backwards.
Let’s be frank: the last term of the Federal Government left the WARR industry disappointed and frustrated. The early rhetoric was strong; promises to regulate, to expand stewardship; and to fix the broken parts of the system that leave materials stranded onshore without markets. There was talk of stewardship schemes for packaging and textiles, eco-modulation to reward better design, and national regulatory consistency to attract investment. However, by the end of the term, most of that ambition had dissolved into silence. The promised regulations never materialised. Stewardship schemes were left hanging. Investment pipelines stalled.
And inevitably, confidence wavered. When manufacturers and investors do not see the promised follow-through, why would they commit? When government procurement and policy fail to prioritise recycled content, orders for recovered materials dry up. The result is a circular economy in name only. As industry has said many times, Australia cannot recycle its way out of this challenge with goodwill alone.
We need rules that reward responsibility, regulation that drives design, and markets that pull recovered materials through the system.
Like every other industry, WARR needs income, investment, and a clear regulatory framework to thrive. Levies play an important role in signalling that landfilling valuable materials should not be the cheapest option and that waste material has real economic value. But levies alone are blunt tools; they often sit far from those generating the waste and are unable to deliver the transformation we need on their own. That’s why we need the other levers: policies that attract capital, build reprocessing plants, and create markets for remanufactured goods.
To make Australia’s WARR system work, regulation must ensure that what comes out of the bin goes somewhere productive — and back into circulation through products, packaging, and manufacturing here at home. That means mandatory recycled content requirements to create guaranteed demand for recovered materials; design standards and stewardship obligations in order that products are built for reuse and recovery from the start; and procurement rules that make recycled content the default, not the exception.
Doubling material circularity by 2035 in Australia will not happen by chance. It will happen when regulation, markets, and investment work together, and when governments show the courage to make the tough calls that create certainty and unlock the capital needed to build Australia’s recycling and reprocessing capacity.
There is hope on the resource recovery horizon. The Recycling and Waste Reduction (RAWR) Act 2020 review presents the Federal Government’s best opportunity in years to finally put these levers to work. Done properly, it could deliver the coherent national framework we have been calling for – one that links design, stewardship, and recovery in a unified system. It could unlock the regulatory certainty the supply chain needs to invest in reprocessing, remanufacturing, and advanced recycling.
However, time is ticking. The review has been slow, opaque, and worryingly quiet. With new export restrictions taking effect in mid-2026, we cannot afford drift. Without clear direction, Australia risks losing the gains made through the Recycling Modernisation Fund and the National Waste Policy Action Plan (NWPAP), which, while imperfect, at least got federal and state governments talking about waste and materials strategies in a way we had not seen for almost a decade.
While it appears that the NWPAP has been placed on the backburner, the reality is that we already have a forum capable of driving real change across Australia: the Heads of EPA (HEPA). In many ways, this group does not need to wait for Canberra given the majority of regulation occurs at the state level. HEPA can and should be making a tangible difference by aligning standards across jurisdictions and addressing long-standing regulatory gaps that block investment.
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Take organics, for instance. Australia has a national target to halve organics to landfill by 2030, yet we still lack consistent national standards for testing, sampling, or contamination limits. These inconsistencies add risk, delay investment, and stifle progress. The same applies to emerging contaminants like PFAS, where coordinated national guidance remains elusive. HEPA could show genuine leadership by setting nationally consistent standards that reduce uncertainty and support investment. Every investor in recycling and remanufacturing says the same thing: clarity and consistency matter.
Amid federal uncertainty, some states are leading the resource recovery charge. New South Wales stands out, with the first chapter of its Waste and Circular Infrastructure Plan released in October 2025, regulatory frameworks for battery-powered items underway, an expansion of the CDS, a RIS to explore stewardship for PV panels, and regulations mandating the separation of organics by 2030 (MSW and some commercial and industrial premises too!). While a review of the waste levy is still needed, it’s heartening to see multiple levers being pulled by a reforming minister. NSW shows that the circular economy is not simply a theory, it’s a practical, job-creating reality when the rules are clear and direction consistent.
Sadly, that level of leadership is not uniform. In Queensland, the Local Government Association’s (LGAQ) push to abolish the so-called “bin tax” is a backwards step. Rather than building on the existing framework to grow markets and processing capacity, it risks undermining the economic and environmental foundations of the system. What’s needed is not another political soundbite, but a coordinated policy that supports recycling and remanufacturing, especially in regional Australia. Without regulation to drive design and end-market demand, we are not creating circularity; we are simply moving waste around, sometimes literally across state borders. We wait to see if the impending Queensland Waste Strategy delivers this.
So… will 2026 become the defining year for Australia’s circular economy? Hopefully if we get clear air after the reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Federal Government must follow through with regulatory action. We already have the levers, the industry capability, and the
public support. To truly shift the dial, Australia must deliver a strong RAWR Act review with enforceable stewardship and design obligations; mandate recycled content and eco-design standards to drive demand; empower HEPA to deliver national regulatory consistency; and support investment in remanufacturing, not just collection and sorting.
If we want jobs, investment, and materials that stay in circulation, we need a policy ecosystem that values both sides of the equation – recovery and reuse, supply and demand, collection and creation. Australia doesn’t lack ambition. What we lack is regulatory courage. We already know what works: clear standards, enforceable schemes, strong procurement, and stable markets. The countries that lead in circularity don’t rely on voluntary measures or good intentions, they regulate for success.
The circular economy is not a slogan. It’s a system. And systems like resource recovery need structure.
Let’s stop circling the same conversations and start building the framework that will keep materials, and our resource recovery industry, in motion.