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.
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. The use of polystyrene cups, bowls, plates and clamshell containers will also be illegal under the new laws. …
As COVID bites, Waste Expo goes digital
The country’s largest gathering of waste management and resource recovery professionals Waste Expo Australia 2020, is migrating its conference online to help strengthen the sector impacted by COVID.
WARR leader picks up industry advocacy honour
The 2020 Woman in Industry Awards Industry Advocacy prize has been awarded to National Waste and Recycling Industry Council (NWRIC) CEO, Rose Read.
Bingo grows up in the time of COVID
The waste management operator Bingo Industries has delivered an extraordinary profit result, moving from a $22.3 million profit in FY1 9 to $66 million in FY20, a 196 per cent increase.
WMMR moves forward with fresh state leadership
The Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMMR) CEO Gayle Sloan has welcomed the 2020-2022 WMRR State Branch Committee presidents and vice presidents.
WMRR and GISA pave the way for Buy Recycled expo
In a move to lift awareness around buying and creating goods made from recycled content, the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR), has partnered with Green Industries SA (GISA).
Macca’s makes local history with recycled restaurant
The 1,000th McDonald’s fast food restaurant will open in Melton South in Victoria at the end of the year using recycled material throughout the building including infrastructure and furnishings.
McDonald’s Australia senior director of development Josh Bannister, said it was the company’s first local sustainability flagship.
“The Melton South restaurant will play a vital role in allowing us to continue to test, evaluate and implement industry-leading sustainable innovations,” he said.
There will also be 100 per cent renewable energy used in the restaurant thanks to solar energy panel installed on the roof. The restaurant will include a waste sorting bin for greater recycling and diversion from landfill.
Cutlery offered to customers will all be fibre based including stirrers and straws following its commitment earlier this year to help reduce plastic use and waste.
The franchisee of the 1,000th restaurant, Ben Westover, has been an operator of McDonald’s restaurants for more than a decade and said he was excited to open the new store.
$2 billion to help one million Australians get work
A previously unimagineable amount of $2 billion has been pledged by the federal government for the now one million Australian unemployed and school-leavers to learn new skills.
$500 million will go to a ‘JobTrainer’ scheme to run new courses for hundreds of thousands of workers so they have the skills that will be in demand when a recovery comes.
The remaining $1.5 billion will go to further wage subsidies for apprentices including this year’s school-leavers. The $500 million component will go towards courses that meet the needs identified by the National Skills Commission, in consultation with the states and territories and in the hope they will match the funding.
The courses are expected to be in fields such as health, retail, social assistance, transport, manufacturing and warehousing.
The National Waste and Recycling Industry Council (NWRIC) CEO Rose Read, told Inside Waste that there were always available jobs for women and men as forklift drivers.
“Our members find those roles challenging to fill and now as the industry is growing there are also roles at local processing facilities,” she said.
Read added that auditing jobs in environmental health and safety and customer service were other areas were school and university leavers could up-skill and apply.
Funding will assist long-term
Australian Resources and Energy Group AMMA director operations, Tara Diamond said the government investment in 100,000 extra apprentices would assist in arresting the sliding number of apprentices and trainees, but longer-term will help more Australians access diverse, highly-paid and rewarding careers within the resources and energy industry.
However, she cautioned that for the funding to deliver long-term positive outcomes for both employees and employers, it must be targeted to address key areas of skills demand and shortages.
“Understanding and pinpointing the areas of current and future workforce demand must be a priority for the government’s new skills package. Employers want to know specifically how the type of training is determined and what modelling will be used to identify the skills most in demand.”
An AMMA Workforce Modelling report, released a few months prior to COVID-19, estimated that new resources and energy projects would create around 21,000 new long-term jobs in the resources and energy industry by 2024. While the economic environment has changed markedly, Ms Diamond said this modelling provides strong insight into what occupations in the resources and energy sector will become in demand.
“The pre-COVID workforce modelling showed likely demand for 8,660 mining equipment operators, 2,847 heavy diesel fitters and 970 other tradespeople across electrical, mechanical and maintenance trades,” she said.
“This is just operating roles in the mining industry over the next four years. Factoring in construction trades required to build new resources and major public infrastructure projects, and the demands will be far greater.
“More trainees and apprentices with the right skills in the right areas, will be critical for our nation’s economic recovery.
“Additionally, this focus on apprenticeships cannot afford to leave females behind. As we know the majority of trade apprenticeships are males – we must equally encourage both males and females to be skilled and up-skilled in trades.”
APCO streams out priorities for 2020/21 FY
The schedule of priority projects for the 2020/21 financial year for the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) was launched last week on the weekly APCO Community Webinar.