The 2020 APCO Awards ceremony will return on 18 November with a new digital format and three new categories.
No butts about this research
Researchers have shown how industries could work together to recycle cigarette butts into bricks, in a step-by-step implementation plan for saving energy and solving a global littering problem.
Bio-recycle given highest waste penalty
Recycling company, Bio-recycle Australia Pty Ltd, has been fined $300,000 for receiving and disposing of more waste than it was authorised to over a three-year period.
Latrobe City Council rejects ULAB recycling facility
The Latrobe City Council has rejected a proposal by Chunxing Corporation to build the state’s first lead battery recycling plant in the municipality, saying lead from the plant posed too big a risk to the community.
What Cleanaway’s Vik Bansal has learnt since May
In a frank interview with the Australian Financial Review (AFR) Cleanaway Waste Management’s CEO Vik Bansal, explained why he needed to be tough on staff to fix the company. Read more
Queensland needs an EPA, says leading associations
Six weeks out from the Queensland election, both the Waste Recycling Industry Association of Queensland (WRIQ) and the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) have appealed to the government to set-up an independent Environment Protection Authority.
Vic Greens want more recycling factories before 2025 shortfall
The Victorian Greens have called on the state government to invest in 23 new or expanded recycling factories by 2025 to meet the state’s needs and ensure high recycling rates.
Vic EPA puts waste crime in its sights
More than 70 officers will join Victoria’s new Waste Crime Prevention Inspectorate to reduce waste crime. It is the largest recruitment of specialists in the Environment Protection Authority’s (EPA’s) history.
How Return and Earn became a recycling success
The NSW Return and Earn program has seen over four billion containers recycled since 2017 through the scheme.
According to Environment Minister Matt Kean, the program’s design enabled it to deliver tangible environmental, social and economic benefits to NSW, including more than $10.4 million paid to not-for-profits and charities via donations.
“The latest research shows 75 per cent of residents have now participated in Return and Earn – this is a phenomenal achievement in less than three years,” Kean said.
“It also highlights the importance of community-based return point operators like local newsagencies, corner stores and post offices.”
Job opportunities
Return and Earn has provided opportunities for local business to get on board and realise the potential for commercial opportunities and local job creation.
In turn, local businesses have improved customer access by increasing the number of return points.
Kean said that the benefits of the scheme for the environment and to the individual are clear: less material ending up as litter or landfill while being rewarded for each container returned.
“Benefitting from being part of the scheme are social enterprises like Vinnies which have set up their own return points and collected over 100 million containers.
“This has created jobs for many people within communities, including those with disabilities and the long-term unemployed,” he added.
The network of return points in NSW currently consists of 245 over-the-counter return points and 27 automated depots, alongside the 325 reverse vending machines.
SA pioneers single-use plastic products ban
South Australia has made history as the first Australian state to ban plastic straws, cutlery and stirrers. The ban, which comes into effect in 2021, prohibits the sale, supply or distribution of plastic cutlery, straws and beverage stirrers.