Opinion

PFAS
 Opinion

Wasted Space: How bad is bad

Hi Sir, One of my little bugbears has been keeping me awake at night: forever chemicals – PFAS. At first, I thought it might be a case of them being ‘the next asbestos’. This range of undesirable chemicals seems to be everywhere at the moment – in the water, on the ground, in clothing, furniture – just everywhere. And they might be the next asbestos – i.e. something that is repellent to our species. But how dangerous is it? The thing is, we don’t really know. It could be really dangerous. It might be slightly dangerous. It might not be dangerous at all. A recent draft drinking water guideline from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) located here in this Great Southern Land has now decided the amount of PFOS (a particularly prevalent and concerning forever chemical) allowed in such water should be 20 times lower than current guidelines. Read More
Veolia
 Opinion

Veolia fined $30k over licence breach

Veolia Environmental Services (Australia) Pty Ltd has been issued a fine of $30,000 by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) for breaching a condition of its Environment Protection Licence relating to the storage of leachate at the Woodlawn Landfill near Goulburn. Read More
Net Zero
 Opinion

Finally some good news – but plenty to do

After what seems like months of false starts and a general lack of action to move towards our often-cited Net Zero and Resource Recovery targets, it was pleasing to end 2024 with a little bit of good news; the increase in the national recovery rate of 3 per cent (about 2 million tonnes) in the latest National Waste and Resource Recovery Report. Read More
OTR
 Equipment, Opinion, Shredders

Eldan’s specialised equipment makes short work of OTR issue

One could argue all waste streams are troublesome. However, some are more difficult than others. There’s an organic focus to streams like FOGO and the (non-treated) wood content of C&D waste, whereby environmentally friendly solutions can be found. Yet, there are other streams, there are just plain ugly. Soft plastics – well, most plastics – immediately spring to mind. Another is tyres. And it is the latter that has caused many issues when it comes to disposal. One of the key prerequisites to making sure tyres are recycled, reused or disposed of correctly, is making sure they can be broken down properly. This is especially true for off-road tyres (OTR), even more so with those involved in industries like mining. Some of the tyres are huge – they can weigh hundreds of kgs and be anywhere from 1.5 metres to 4 metres high. Read More
Nylon
 Circular Economy, Opinion, Packaging, Plastic

Microscopic helpers recycle nylon waste

A team of scientists from the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences – Biotechnology at Forschungszentrum Jülich worked together with the company Novonesis to develop a bacterium that “eats” individual building blocks of different types of nylon and converts them into value-added products. The results of this research will help improve nylon recycling. The study has just been published in the journal Nature Microbiology. Read More