Research into Australia’s first sustainable food city south of Brisbane is underway to help create a digitally-enabled community compost system and small-scale food production businesses.
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Research into Australia’s first sustainable food city south of Brisbane is underway to help create a digitally-enabled community compost system and small-scale food production businesses.
Read more
The ban will see plastic bags disappear from all retail outlets, with shoppers encouraged to bring their own bags, as part of a push to reduce plastic waste.
Most retailers will begin the ban from July 1, or face a $6300 fine each time they are caught using a thin plastic bag. It is the beginning of a slow plan to reduce the amount of accumulated plastics in the environment. Read more
Now almost 10 years in, she has the confidence to refer to herself as managing director and is slowly leading the charge of women into the traditionally male-dominated industry.
“When I started I was definitely an outsider, I’d never worn steel cap boots and the last time I’d worn fluoro orange was as a kid in the eighties,” Price said. Read more
The China Sword Policy has reduced significantly the return obtained for paper commons by Council’s MRF operator and there is now no market for the lowest grade of plastics that were previously recycled. This totals approximately 220 tonnes of material that will not be able to be recycled at this stage per year.
China’s lower intake of recyclables from foreign countries means there has to be a stronger effort to slash waste. Read more
The proposed local law is intended to replace Chapter 5A: Waste Management by Local Governments of the Environmental Protection Regulations 2008 and section 7 in Part 2A of the Waste Reduction and Recycling Regulation 2011. Both are scheduled to expire on July 1.
The City of Gold Coast has said that its proposed Local Law 20, which was open for submissions till last week, would protect public health and amenity related to waste management by: Read more
The issue has now hit the political headlines. It was framed by 4 Corners as a matter of criminal behaviour, which it isn’t. Queensland has committed to reducing it through increased inspection of interstate trucks. But it is legal. Inspecting truck certificates addresses a symptom only.
To be clear, trucking waste between the states is not illegal. It is part of the free trade between states that is protected under s.92 of the Australian Constitution. Read more
Speaking to industry players including NSW EPA director waste and resource recovery Steve Beaman, ACOR CEO Grant Musgrove, WCRA executive director Tony Khoury, Polytrade Rydalmere manager Nathan Ung, Bingo Industries CEO Daniel Tartak and Dial A Dump chief executive Ian Malouf, Four Corners’ “Trashed” showed viewers scenes of waste management practices, saying these would “seriously threaten the community’s faith in the billion-dollar recycling industry.”
Fixing the broken
Turning first to glass recycling, Four Corners took viewers inside Polytrade’s facilities where thousands of tonnes of glass are being stockpiled, and some landfilled, instead of being recycled. Read more
Speaking to Inside Waste after winning the Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) Transfer Stations Excellence Awards at the 2017 Australian Landfill & Transfer Stations Innovation and Excellence Awards in March, Matt McCarthy, manager of Townsville City Council’s Waste Services, said the facility has been a long time coming and a lot of planning and work was done over 10 years.
“Ten years ago, we knew we were running out of landfill space and we needed to do something more, so a lot of community consultation was undertaken around the waste management strategy for Magnetic Island, and we surprisingly got a lot of support from the community – I think it was 98% support for a transfer station,” McCarthy said. Read more
In recent years, bans on lightweight plastic bags have been implemented in South Australia, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania, while South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia all have container deposit schemes.
Queensland Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection Steven Miles introduced the Waste Reduction and Recycling Amendment Bill 2017 into the Legislative Assembly on June 14, 2017, citing Queensland as having one of the lowest recycling rates in Australia. Read more