Many in Australia’s recycling industry are concerned that Sunday’s 60 Minutes program on Australia’s plastic waste challenges, screened on-air in mid-April, didn’t paint the full picture of the country’s recycling efforts and didn’t highlight the industry’s contribution to improving waste management.
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Jaguar Land Rover is investing in a closed-loop strategy for its vehicles in a bid to maximise the use of recycled materials into its next generation models.
When people think of recycling, the first thing that usually comes to mind is commingled recycling. And more often that not, it is the one happening at the household level, at the kerbside. However, organics recycling, both at the household and commercial level, represent a significant opportunity for resource recovery.
Cambridge Gardens Public School in Penrith, NSW, has just unveiled its community garden set made from recycled oral care waste after winning a national recycling competition in which schools around the country recycled over 200,000 toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and dental floss containers.
The ACT government is currently trialling a new type of asphalt made from a range of recycled materials. Unlike previous trials, this new asphalt product uses a mixture of recycled products from a number of different sources.
Contrary to recent comments to the ABC that, “.. the bulk of the containers that are going into the (NSW) container deposit scheme are containers that would have ordinarily been recycled anyway,” in fact the NSW return and earn scheme has already more than doubled container recycling in the state, according to the Australian Council or Recycling (ACOR).
Camille Reed, founder of the newly launched Australian Circular Textile Association, is calling for a national clothing take-back scheme in a country of 25 million people as she believes this would avoid severe disruption to the fashion industry caused by mandatory regulations.
Recycling contracts in Australia are under threat and a crisis is looming after China implemented its National Sword Policy on January 1, 2018, which restricted the importation of 24 categories of solid waste and limits contamination of those materials to less than 0.5 per cent. The restrictions are already being felt in the sector, with stockpiling beginning and waste collectors across the country trying to find new markets to prevent a disruption of kerbside collection services.
With several councils being recently locked out of their Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs), leaving them with no option but to send waste to landfill, there is a fear within industry that this may be just the tip of the iceberg if government doesn’t stop the talk and instead start the actions needed to avoid further pain on these pressing issues.
The use of asbestos was banned in Australia in 2004 immediately after the industry recognition of the life-threatening dangers associated with the inhalation of asbestos fibers. Medical conditions resulting from exposure to asbestos can take as long as 10 to 20 years to reveal themselves. Despite this ban, Australians still suffer from the consequences of existing buildings containing asbestos.