Kerbside Recycling is at the crossroads. The ban, imposed by China, on recycling is having major implications for local councils. China’s announcement on January 1st 2018 banned 24 categories of solid waste. Recycling company, Visy, are no longer accepting kerbside recycling.
In Victoria, Visy stopped accepting waste from 22 regional councils on February 9th. Warehouses around the country are now filling with waste with little prospect of it finding a home in the short-term.
Most Australian recycling companies collect, sort and store waste. Sadly research reveals that Australia lacks the infrastructure and investment to do further processing of waste.
Garth Lamb from the Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) believes that we need to develop new industries, such as using the glut of recycled glass to make base for new roads. “ A lot of the big state government road projects, could suck up all the glass that’s being stockpiled around Australia into one of these big road projects,” Mr Lamb said. Unfortunately for the industry recycled glass is being overlooked in favour of newly mined sand.
Kerbside Recycling,Government Action?
Sadly with the government pre-occupied with internal division, the likelihood of leadership in this area is unlikely. With the lack of a cohesive national landfill policy we have major movement of landfill to Victoria, where levies are much lower than other states. Government priorities need to change.
At a time when big brands such as Woolworths, Unilever, Officeworks and Nestle have supported new recycling initiatives, local councils are pleading with households to do less recycling.
Recycal’s policy is that good recycling comes from working with all sections of the community from small business, to large corporate customers. Recycal and its experienced waste management team will continue to look at new technologies as it seeks to innovate and help governments solve our growing recycling problem.
