CORPORATE WASTE SOLUTIONS
RESPONSIBLE PROSPERITY
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Woman of Steel MAY | JUNE 2017
UNSW’s extraordinary Veena Sahajwalla
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MAKING THE RIGHT CONNECTION The Internet of Things and its role in sustainability
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT E-WASTE The launch of a new ‘conversation on waste’ interview series
PACKAGING THE SOLUTION Who is leading the way on packaging waste?
THE BOTTOM LINE IS CIRCULAR Two Queensland sisters changing the world one street at a time
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Contents Issue 7 20 30
11 38
26 OPENING FEATURE
29
PROFILE
20
Sustainability’s missing link
26
Packaging a solution
The focus on plastic bags and coffee cups into the waste stream is always welcome, but larger structural issues need to be tackled.
Woman of steel
A number of international companies are showing the way on more sustainable packaging.
The extraordinary Veena Sahajwalla is redefining and reimagining what it means to be sustainable.
38 CONTENT PARTNER FEATURE
18 Organic processing facilities – past, present and future OPINION
11 Kicking up a stink on waste Is human waste the ultimate circular economy opportunity?
Make our soil great again We need to work from the ground up to ensure our agricultural land literally doesn’t go to waste.
44
CASE STUDY
30 I want your… batteries What can Australia learn from battery stewardship in North America?
Making history, not waste The extraordinary success of Cartridges 4 Planet Ark provides a great illustration for other industries grappling with product stewardship.
46 It’s in the numbers The need to make evidence-based decisions has driven a requirement for the best possible data on waste.
www.cwsmagazine.com.au
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48
34
56
60
16
FEATURES
52
CWS REGULARS
34
The organics opportunity
8
Making the right connection
It’s time to look at the considerable benefits available from managing FOGO better.
Editor’s comment
What role can the Internet of Things play in protecting the environment and achieving a sustainable future?
56
40
The bottom line is circular
Making it policy Does government need to seriously rethink its approach to policy to give Australia the best chance of embracing the circular economy?
A six-month pilot underway in Maroochydore, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, aims to demonstrate the social, environmental and financial value of embracing a circular economy model.
48
Q&A
We need to talk about e-waste
60
PonyUp for Good co-founder MARDI BROWN launches a new interview series aimed at keeping the conversation going on resource recovery and waste.
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16 Product showcase
64 Government round-up
66 Events
The benefits of urban greening In the rush to develop urban holdings, green spaces can be easily overlooked, but Frasers Property has embrace the 202020 vision.
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Associate Publisher Lachlan Oakley lachlan.oakley @ niche.com.au (03) 9948 4952
Editorial Managing Editor Madeleine Swain madeleine.swain @ niche.com.au Editor Michelle Dunner michelle.dunner @ niche.com.au Assistant Online Editor Tiffany Paczek tiffany.paczek @ niche.com.au
Editorial
When the ‘i’s have it
I
confess to being a bit of an Apple junkie with a life dominated by products and gadgets that start with ‘i’. Very fortunately, when I’ve upgraded my hardware at various junctures, especially iPads, I’ve been able to hand down the older models to family members. My in-laws, both in their 90s, have taken to the technology with alacrity and use their iPads every day. It’s humbling and rewarding to see how much their lives have been enriched as a result. But there comes a time when the divide between hardware and software is impossible to cross. The hardware is generally still in pretty good shape, but the apps cease to function. So when Apple announced its next operating system upgrade would not be available for a host of older hardware, I had visions of piles of smartphones and tablets making a new generation of e-waste. And the problem isn’t going away anytime soon. As John Gertsakis writes in this issue, smartphones and tablets will have even bigger roles to play in the Internet of Things, where our houses, our office buildings, even our entire cities will be transformed through a new era of connectivity. While there are great product stewardship initiatives around many electrical goods, as well as exceptional social entrepreneurs like PonyUp for Good making an impact on e-waste, ensuring we have the right policy settings in place to ensure the IoT will be a boon, not an environmental bust, for society is crucial. PonyUp has launched its new interview series with us this month, featuring Sustainability Victoria chef, Stan Krpan. This issue of CWS has a product stewardship focus. Libby Chaplin and Helen Lewis look at developments in batteries, while Jenni Downes looks at best practice in packaging. We also look at a great corporate initiative designed to make our cities more liveable – the 202020 Vision. Our Q&A feature examines why Frasers Property has become involved in creating more green spaces within property developments. As always, I value your feedback. Please get in touch with any comments. Michelle Dunner Editor
A Corporate Waste Solutions Content Partner is an organisation with which we’ve entered into a partnership to collaborate on content for the magazine. In this issue, the thought leaders are: Peter Maré and Gunther Neumann from REMONDIS. Maré is the branch manager of Re-earth ORRF and Neumann is the head of the Technical Department at Lake Macquarie Composting Plant.
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Business development manager Nirma Ledford nirma.ledford @ niche.com.au (03) 9948 4992 Production Editorial design Keely Goodall Production manager Alicia Pinnock alicia.pinnock@niche.com.au Digital prepress Karl Dyer Publishing Chairman Nicholas Dower Managing director Paul Lidgerwood Publisher & commercial director Joanne Davies Financial controller Sonia Jurista Subscriptions Subscription enquiries Call 1800 804 160 or email subscriptions@niche.com.au Cover Image: Courtesy UNSW Printing Graphic Impressions CWS online — CWSmagazine.com.au — twitter.com/CWSmagazine_au — facebook.com/facilitymanagementmagazine — linkedin.com/Facility Management magazine
CWS is a publication of HH & M Media Pty Ltd, a member of the Niche Group. HH & M Media ABN 81 091 724 588 Niche Group ABN 20 097 172 337 1 Queens Road Melbourne, Victoria 3004 Tel: 03 9948 4900 / Fax: 03 9948 4999
PRIVACY POLICY
CONTENT PARTNER CONTRIBUTION
Gunther Neumann
Advertising
Peter Maré
This issue of CWS magazine may contain offers, competitions, surveys, subscription offers and premiums that, if you choose to participate, require you to provide information about yourself. If you provide information about yourself to HH & M Media (the publishers of CWS magazine), HH & M Media and Niche Group will use the information to provide you with the products or services you have requested (such as subscriptions). We may also provide this information to contractors who provide the products and services on our behalf (such as mail houses and suppliers of subscriber premiums and promotional prizes). We do not sell your information to third parties under any circumstances, however the suppliers of some of these products and services may retain the information we provide for future activities of their own, including direct marketing. Niche Group will also retain your information and use it to inform you of other Niche Group promotions and publications from time to time. If you would like to know what information Niche Group holds about you, please contact The Privacy Officer, Niche Group Pty Ltd, Suite 1418, Level 14, 1 Queens Road, Melbourne VIC 3004. CWS ISSN 1320-3975 Advertisers and contributors of editorial to CWS Magazine acknowledge they are aware of the provisions of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 and the Trade Practices Act 1974 in relation to false and misleading advertising or statements and other unfair practices and of the penalties for breach of provisions of those acts. The publisher accepts no responsibility for such breaches. CWS Magazine is published bi-monthly. Opinions expressed by contributors are their own and not necessarily endorsed by the publisher. www.cwsmagazine.com.au © 2017 HH & M Media Pty Ltd
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Is human waste the ultimate circular economy opportunity? SANDY RODGER explains.
Comment
Kicking up a stink on waste
C
holera outbreaks in London during the mid 19th century killed 25,000 people with 1858 becoming known as the ‘Great Stink’. The disease was poorly understood at the time, but the smell finally provoked action. Joseph Bazalgette led the construction of 1200 miles of sewers, completed in 1857 and he was knighted that year. The sewers transformed London and were arguably the biggest single step the city took to become a modern metropolis. Call it Bazalgette v1. Fast-forward more than 150 years… while infectious disease has been dramatically reduced in developed countries, there are 2.4 billion people around the world who still do not have access to sanitation. Throughout the developing world, in both urban and rural areas, these people are challenged in terms of disease and dignity, even safety, by lack of sanitation. But even more than that, the World Bank released its ‘Economics of Sanitation’ study and estimated all this to be a US$260 billion drag on the economies of these countries. Despite huge efforts and annual investments of around US$15 billion, the problem is not diminishing. Indeed, we’re just keeping pace with population growth. Bazalgette-type sewers are too expensive, too slow and too difficult to implement in rapidly growing cities or rural areas. I’m proud to have been part of the championing of a new approach, through the Toilet Board Coalition. Rather than sanitation being a drain on resources, the coalition seeks to make it a business proposition and, ultimately, a self-sustaining system. If sanitation is profitable, it is investable. If it can create profits and jobs, local people will play a part in providing an essential service for their own communities. We’re talking about more than a leapfrog idea – where we help the developing world
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© Jaromír Chalabala
If sanitation is profitable, it is investable. jump over a few stages and catch up. This is an opportunity to leap ahead of developed countries, with systems that achieve health outcomes and have other benefits within society. So we need to figure out how to better Bazalgette. Here, we tap two big ideas of the 21st century – the circular economy and digitisation. Like so much in the early years of industrialised, urbanised society, and perpetuated since, Bazalgette’s assumption was of a linear economy. The motivation behind the development of the sewers was health and smell – not to use sewage as a resource. Sewage was literally taken away.
Initially it was straight to the River Thames; treatment plants were only added in 1900 – Bazalgette v1.1. When these came online, they cleaned up the outflow, but still recovered no resource or value. Even today, sewage has negative value as residents pay for the service. Combine this with the cultural spiral where human waste is treated with revulsion, and we’ve willingly accepted Bazalgette’s solution – just take it away, as we do in much the same way with other waste streams in their rapidly growing volumes. Research over the last five years on the circular economy, across multiple industry sectors, and focused on the developed world, suggests the linear economy carries an economic cost of more than $1 trillion. The developing world, and especially the 2.4 billion poorest, cannot afford to share this mindset. And they certainly can’t afford to build Victorian sewers.
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© Marcel Derweduwen
So does the circular economy, applied to sanitation, offer an alternative that makes economic sense, actually works and still achieves our health needs? The answer is yes, with not one but four huge opportunities.
OPPORTUNITY 1: ‘TOILET RESOURCES’ Sewage is a particularly silly material to label as waste. It can yield soil enhancers and fertilisers, which increase crop yields – in places short of land and of food. It contains water, which can be treated to a usable standard – in places short of water. It allows energy recovery – renewable energy, unlike burning municipal waste or cutting down forests for fuel. There are innovative products, which can be derived from sewage – plastics, pharmaceuticals and pet food for a start. And it can be safe, if managed properly. All this is available, in volumes perfectly proportional to the population. And yet we call this stuff ‘waste’. No matter how strong and laudable our health motivation, this linear mindset is an overreaction. At the Toilet Board we now avoid the ‘w-word’ and have replaced it with a new term – ‘toilet resources’.
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OPPORTUNITY 2: TOILETS FOR 2.4 BILLION Providing enough toilets, transport and their associated treatment plants represents a huge proliferation of equipment. It all needs to be manufactured, maintained and cleaned, for the long-term, long after any of this is considered a ‘project’ or a ‘development goal’. In the circular economy, performance and service models are proving effective and efficient in providing similar equipment and facilities. These create the right incentives to sustain long-term performance, unlike traditional one-off sales of equipment, often designed for short life and obsolescence, and quickly falling into disrepair. So the second circular opportunity is to apply circular economy business models to sanitation equipment.
OPPORTUNITY 3: THE SYSTEM THE WEST NEVER BUILT – HOLISTIC BIOLOGICAL WASTE What if we could get the biological cycle working on a much broader basis? What if all the food waste (regarded as a global problem) found its way back to the soil? What if the lowest-value plastics, now
filling up the oceans, were replaced with compostable materials that mostly go back to the soil and, in the worst case, rapidly biodegrade anywhere else they land? We can’t do this today because typically we have no biological waste system; in fact, biological materials, bizarrely, are regarded as a contaminant in our waste system. For developed countries a biological waste system is a slightly awkward add-on, a hybrid of our existing solid waste and wastewater (sewer) systems. For developing countries it is much simpler – just build a combined biological waste system right from the start. That’s a decentralised, container-based system, mostly without sewage pipes. It’s actually a far quicker way to provide sanitation. So, sanitation, food waste, plastic waste – three big issues addressed with one system, which is cheaper than the alternative. How good is that? This is the third circular opportunity.
OPPORTUNITY 4: DIGITISATION Sanitation may not be the highest profile application of the Internet of Things (IoT), but it holds many opportunities. What health interventions could be achieved if sensors detected pathogens in toilets?
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Opinion
How could millions of new toilets and treatment plants function economically if their operation and maintenance were optimised by automatically sharing information – is the tank full, is the toilet broken? Where payments are needed, could they be made on a mobile phone? Does all this play a part in a smart city? The digital toilet is a real prospect, beyond Bazalgette’s imagination. It’s early days. The economics are not yet proven, and previous attempts to sell toilet resources have struggled to make profits. Health and environmental gains don’t easily show up as cash flows for business. The Toilet Board intends to reverse this. First, the firepower of the Toilet Board’s members (including Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Firmenich and Lixil) and its stakeholders promises a much stronger business push. Second, the circular economy and digitisation can bring new revenue streams, lower costs and ways to monetise some of the benefits to wider society. All three strengthen the P&L (profit and loss) and the business case, and in this way we believe we can break through with the economics. The Toilet Board works with annual cohorts of SMEs across the developing world – the 2017 cohort comprises BioCycle, Safi Sana, Samagra, Sanergy and Sanivation. These operate across Africa and Asia, already producing and selling energy, agricultural products and water, from toilet resources, together with mobile-enabled services. They are the core of a growing network of like-minded businesses, large and small, supported by universities and international organisations. So, on the circular economy for sanitation, the train has left the station, but, like many Indian trains, the doors are still open for more to get on board. And while the Toilet Board’s work is focused on developing countries, helping the 2.4 billion without sanitation, there could be a parallel story bringing the circular economy to sanitation in the developed world. So it’s time for Bazalgette v2. It could be the surprise business opportunity of the 21st century! ■ Sandy Rodger is circular economy expert adviser and project lead for the Toilet Board Coalition.
www.cwsmagazine.com.au
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Sewage is a particularly silly material to regard as waste. It can yield soil enhancers and fertilisers, which increase crop yields – in places short of land and of food.
© Yongyut Khasawong
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If sanitation is profitable, it is investable.
My personal journey has been about seeing materials and whether they can have a new use or a new life. That applies to clothes, phones, computers, passing them on to people who need them or taking the materials and using them in a new way to achieve a better outcome for us all. – Veena Sahajwalla, UNSW
True sustainability requires a systems perspective across multiple sustainability criteria. It also needs to consider the specific issues for each company and the communities in which they operate, and these can change over time. – Jenni Downes, UTS Institute of Sustainable Futures
One of the misconceptions of sustainability is that either consumers don’t care or it costs too much. Our social research and experience dispels this. – Stan Krpan, Sustainability Victoria
A badly-designed waste levy is very destructive to the recycling industry. But governments accumulate these funds and they prop up a great many state budgets. It is, ultimately, holding back industry development and a move to a more sustainable economic model. – Grant Musgrove, ACOR
FOGO can deliver considerable financial benefits. For an average Sydney Council collecting and landfilling 30,000 tonnes of waste per year, the savings in removing even a conservative 50 percent of the food organics can be up to $2 million every year. – Virginia Brunton, MRA Consulting
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Letting cows graze also builds soil organic matter through dispersing manure across the land, rather than concentrating it in feedlot sewage lagoons. – David R Montgomery University of Washington
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Over the last year Australians have made history by recycling a record 13,500 used printer cartridges every working day, making it the biggest year ever since the launch of the ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’ program 14 years ago. – Ryan Collins, Planet Ark
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The challenge is that there are so many material streams, each with their own unique requirements, that it’s hard to know where to focus the attention. Some of the really big things become almost too hard to think about. – Matt Genever, Reincarnate
An Australianfirst, the data service provides interactive mapping to help identify where Victoria’s waste streams are being generated and to assist all Victorian councils in calculating, monitoring and comparing their kerbside waste.
If it’s acceptable to [hand down clothes and toys] within your family, then we should all be excited to broaden out this concept to a macro view. – Veena Sahajwalla, UNSW
– John Gertsakis, AMTA
– Carl Smith, CEO Call2Recycle
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The opportunity to monitor and control our energy and water use in real time and respond accordingly will become mainstream, and not just an activity of eco-warriors.
But over the last several years, it has become increasingly clear that voluntary programs cannot survive long-term unless there is a strong mechanism to ensure that all players in the industry comply.
rs
Since World War II farmers around the world have abandoned a third of the world’s cropland.
– Stan Krpan, Sustainability Victoria
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Innovation
This issue’s showcase features the latest and greatest ways businesses can be helped to ‘do more with less’.
Product showcase
AI to analyse and sort material streams for recycling US-based Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) has launched Max-AI technology, an artificial intelligence that identifies recyclables and other items for recovery. Through deep learning technology, Max-AI employs both multilayered neural networks and a vision system to see and identify objects similar to the way a person does. The company says this technology will drive improvements in Material Recovery Facility (MRF) design, operational efficiency, recovery, system optimisation, maintenance and more. This robotic sorter uses its vision system to see the material, its artificial intelligence to think and identify each item, and a robot to pick targeted items. This system is able to make multiple sorting decisions autonomously; for example, separating various materials such as thermoform trays, aluminium and fibre while removing residue from a stream of PET bottles. All of this is done at rates exceeding human capabilities. BHS chief executive Steve Miller says that labour is “a significant challenge for MRF
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operators and it’s obvious that Max will be very beneficial in helping our customers manage that aspect of their business”. The first commercial installation of Max-AI robotic sorters is in California, to complement and integrate with the company’s existing NRT optical sorters. “This technology was simply not possible until now,” says Thomas Brooks, BHS director of Technology Development. “Max-AI technology will soon become the active brain of our MRFs, controlling various robotic, optical and other sorting equipment, providing real-time material composition analysis, and making autonomous decisions.” For more information, visit max-ai.com.
Fujitsu launches e-waste smart bin Fujitsu’s new e-waste smart bin technology has been launched to be a potential ‘game changer’ in the fight against e-waste. The company says the smart bins will enable up to 95 percent of materials in e-waste to be recycled. The bins, being rolled out to Fujitsu’s major clients, are equipped with an Internet of Things (IoT) monitor that automatically alerts waste management authorities when it needs to be collected. Once collected, the e-waste is then taken to Fujitsu’s certified recyclers, which deconstruct the e-waste so hazardous materials (like lead and mercury) are disposed of in a safe and environmentally friendly manner, while recycling the remaining 95 percent of materials. Data from devices such as smartphones and tablets is also wiped in a secure
environment before being repurposed or recycled making the smart bins perfect for large businesses to install on-site, or for local governments to place in the community. Lee Stewart, head of Sustainability at Fujitsu Oceania, says, “E-waste is becoming the major recycling issue of the 21st century. With the proliferation of personal technology, owning a smartphone, a tablet and a laptop is becoming the norm for consumers, while the number of devices in the work environment will only continue to grow. “It’s imperative that the community, big business and governments of all levels throughout Australia develop plans to recycle their old devices and we believe that every community and business would benefit from one of our new e-waste smart bins.” E-waste remains one of Australia’s fastest growing waste components, with Australian Bureau of Statistics figures suggesting that by 2027-28, Australians could be sending 181,000 tonnes of it to landfill each year.
New sewage treatment plant range Kingspan has launched what it describes as a world leading sewage treatment plant range for Australian commercial projects. The BioDisc range is aimed at developers and specifiers to ensure they use compliant sewage products to manage their wastewater obligations. The BioDisc BL model is compliant with a number of structural and building standards and Kingspan says it offers the lowest operating and maintenance costs in its class, as well as the lowest odour emission levels. The product has already been installed in a number of mining developments in Western Australia. More information is available from vwww.kingspan.com/au.
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REMONDIS content partnership
FOGO for good The benefits of organic processing facilities are being increasingly acknowledged by industry and public alike, report GUNTHER NEUMANN and PETER MARÉ.
Gunther Neumann
W
Peter MarĂŠ
hen the Port Macquarie Organic Resource Recovery Facility (ORRF) opened in 2001, it was one of the first of its kind in Australia. It was designed as a state-ofthe-art facility that catered for both organic waste and municipal solid waste. At inception the facility was unique in its implementation of a WTT (Waste Treatment Technologies) system, a technology brought in from the Netherlands. Its original contract ran for 10 years. In 2014 REMONDIS regained the contract and it is now one of the best performing facilities of its type in the country. It processes not just green waste, but also biosolids. The facility has the capacity to process approximately 40,000 tonnes per annum and in 2016 received approximately 26,000 tonnes. The decontaminated materials are shredded and prepared for composting using a 7.5tonne Kuhn auger mixer to form a suitably moist feedstock for composting. Biosolids are fed into a 150-tonne storage tank and mixed with the shredded Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) for composting. The resulting
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feedstock is then composted aerobically for 28 to 30 days. The facility’s green waste contamination rate is less than 0.5 percent and it supplies compost to roughly a 300-kilometre radius. This is unusual for most composting facilities, and means that even areas as far afield as Tamworth and Gunnedah are being serviced. The raw material is collected from the Port Macquarie Hastings Council local government area. The facility also receives green waste from the Kempsey region. The facility is running smoothly and has had several modifications made over the years, including the installation of solar panels to lower energy costs and the streamlining of operations to reduce operational costs. The entire facility is run by four people, in addition to the extra staff who run the commercial garbage collection service, picking up organic waste from both businesses and households. The Port Macquarie ORRF is 16 years old and is understandably an ageing facility. The Lake Macquarie Composting Plant, on the other hand, is currently under construction, and is due to be completed midway through 2018. Licensed to treat a capacity of 44,000
The Port Macquarie facility has had several modifications made over the years, including the installation of solar panels to lower energy costs and the streamlining of operations to reduce operational costs.
www.cwsmagazine.com.au
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Content partner
tonnes per annum, the facility will be cutting edge when it’s completed. Supported by the ‘Waste Less Recycle More’ initiative, the plant received grants from the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and the Environmental Trust. These grants enabled the capacity to be increased by 14,000 tonnes in response to community uptake. And this is what both the Port Macquarie and Lake Macquarie facilities have in common – the proof that the environmental message is getting through to households and businesses, which are separating their food and garden organics in ever-growing numbers. This is in large part due to an excellent education campaign from the respective councils, but also thanks to such endeavours as open door days at organics facilities. The Lake Macquarie facility also has many unique and pioneering features, the first of which is its hybrid model. It is the first in the world to use both tunnel composting and aerated static piles technology. The tunnel can be compared to a vast concrete garage that is approximately 30 metres long and six metres wide. The material is placed in the tunnel, the environment of which is computer controlled.
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As air is blown in and the liquids are removed, the settings are adjusted to maintain an optimal temperature for the development of high-quality organic products. The biggest advantage of this system compared to previous systems is it reduces odours and therefore the impact of the facility on its neighbours. The compost created will be of significantly higher nutritional value, improving the quality of Australian soils where it is utilised in addition to growth rates and plant productivity. It will not replace chemical fertilisers, but it will reduce their use, lowering farms’ carbon footprints and reducing costs. Another innovation relates to the manner in which individuals can deposit their waste at the facility. Its weighbridge will be one of the most innovative and modern pieces of equipment in the country, as it will be unmanned and cashless. Users will be able to visit the facility, swipe their credit card and deposit their waste without the need for supervising staff to be present. Another factor that both the original Port Macquarie facility and the new Lake Macquarie plant share is the geographical challenges they face, compared to their
Users will be able to visit the Lake Macquarie facility, swipe their credit card and deposit their waste without the need for supervising staff. European predecessors. Both facilities have had to take into account the significantly higher rainfall and number and intensity of storms experienced on Australia’s east coast. The Port Macquarie facility is located in a subtropical environment, meaning it has had to adapt to accommodate palm trees and succulents, as well as a fluctuating seasonal population, due to the region’s resort status. ■ Gunther Neumann is the head of the Technical Department at REMONDIS' Lake Macquarie Composting Plant and Peter Maré is the branch manager at REMONDIS' Re-earth Organic Resource Recovery Facility in Port Macquarie.
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Feature: Packaging
Packaging a solution A number of international companies are showing the way on more sustainable packaging, as JENNI DOWNES reports.
T
he quantity of packaging is rapidly increasing across the globe in both developed and emerging markets to meet the needs of growing and more affluent populations. This increases the impact of packaging along every stage of the packaging life cycle, from the extraction of resources to the management of waste at end of life. Nevertheless, many advances have been made to temper the growing volume of waste being produced. This includes new product stewardship regulations, greater efficiency in product supply chains and cost pressures prompting companies to save money by using less packaging to deliver the same outcomes. These advances have had positive benefits, including: lowering the demand for raw materials, reducing waste and emissions, switching to more sustainable materials and the removal of hazardous substances from packaging. Earlier this year, my team at the UTS: Institute for Sustainable Futures conducted research on the sustainability of packaging companies operating in emerging markets. The top three performing companies are all headquartered in Europe, which is an acknowledged leader in packaging sustainability.
The fi ndings from these companies, a number of which are global and operating in Australia, provide useful insights into packaging waste here.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH The research was commissioned by Stewart Investors to investigate and evaluate progress being made towards packaging sustainability. The goal was to provide a greater understanding of how companies are addressing packaging sustainability and how Stewart Investors, as a progressive investor with a focus on long-term sustainability, can support these companies in making the most effective improvements in this area. Eighteen companies were included in the research on the basis of participation in an interview and/or sufficient public data. In order to assess these companies, a framework for packaging sustainability was developed that involved nine criteria: five relating to packaging outcomes, and four relating to business processes and activities that support packaging sustainability. Four outcomes criteria are directly relevant for packaging waste: packaging efficiency, packaging recoverability, consumer engagement and on-site packaging recovery. Performance against each criterion was rated on a fivepoint scale.
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Feature PERFORMANCE ON EACH SUSTAINABILITY CRITERIA Sustainable best practice
en ga ge m
Con sum er
Advanced
chain managemen t Supply
Recovery of onsumer packaging c t s o p
Getting started
HENKEL AG & CO
du str yl ea der ship
te -si on of ry ove Rec
*Continue to improve recovery rates for packaging waste generated at industrial sites (factories, distribution centres and offices).
Pa
Industry leader
n sig de
*Investigate opportunities to improve recycling systems for post-consumer packaging in markets without an existing collective (e.g. green dot) program.
t en
ing ag ck
CRITERIA KEY Company score Average Benchmark * Suggestions for improvement
Corpora A te st rate gy
wa ste
*Progressively increase the percentage of recycled PET in bottles, and extend the initiative to markets outside Europe.
Each company received an individual assessment, which included comparison against the benchmark and specific recommendations for improvement (see graph above). The performance levels for the waste-related criteria are shown in the table opposite.
WHAT WE FOUND Overall, companies performed best against packaging efficiency and on-site packaging recovery. Packaging efficiency is attractive from a cost and resource productivity perspective and both of these performance areas are also more easily controlled by companies than, say, supply chain processes. These are obvious areas where companies embarking on packaging sustainability improvements can begin. At the other end of the spectrum, the criterion with the second lowest area of performance overall was packaging recoverability. Also lower down the performance list is consumer engagement (see graph opposite). Simple packaging efficiency can be achieved through a combination of improved packaging material selection and production, clever packaging design to increase structural strength with less
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In
Ma teri al su staina bility
cy ien c i ff ng e Packagi
material, and designing packaging for purpose rather than overdesigning. Good performance includes specific targets for reducing packaging relative to product or sales, or more holistic measures, such as primary and distribution packaging plus product leftovers, fewer materials recycled – along with systematic processes to continually review existing packaging. One issue with packaging efficiency is that lightweighting cannot continue indefi nitely: there is a physical limit to reductions in volume and weight of packaging without compromising packaging integrity or increasing product waste. Leading companies therefore look to optimise packaging to achieve the best balance across these factors, and also consider the product-packaging system as a whole. An example of this is changing the product to a concentrate to reduce volume, creating reusable packaging by introducing refi lls or changing how a product is delivered, such as from a product to a service. Most companies had good on-site packaging recovery systems for easily recoverable materials such as cardboard and other valuable waste streams, from both incoming product packaging and packaging waste generated on-site.
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Feature NO ACTION
GETTING STARTED
ADVANCED
LEADING
TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY
Packaging efficiency
Some action is being taken to improve packaging efficiency through limited or ad hoc initiatives.
Documented policy and/or targets in place to optimise packaging efficiency and at least one case study that shows improvements.
The company has SMART targets to optimise packaging efficiency. Progress is monitored and reported. There are many case studies to demonstrate improvements.
All packaging has been optimised. Continual improvement program in place to optimise product-packaging systems. Significant outcomes have been reported.
Packaging recoverability
Some action has been taken; e.g. to investigate options for recovery of packaging; design for recovery.
Documented commitment to improve recovery; some operational or financial support is being provided to improve recovery.
The company has taken some responsibility for recovery of its packaging; progress is being monitored and reported; packaging is designed for recovery.
All packaging is designed for reuse, recycling or composting. Consumers in all markets have access to a free recovery service and high recovery rates are being achieved.
Consumer engagement
Some effort to engage consumers through limited or ad hoc packaging initiatives.
There is a strategy for consumer engagement in packaging sustainability; e.g. through on-pack labelling with disposable/ recovery instructions.
There is clear, on-pack labelling for recovery that complies with international standards. Consumers are engaged in broader sustainability issues; e.g. food waste.
There is a strategy to continually educate consumers about sustainable consumption/disposal; e.g. through information, ecolabels.
On-site packaging recovery
On-site packaging waste is only recycled where there is financial value.
Most on-site packaging waste is reused or recycled. Suppliers are asked to take back or minimise packaging.
There is a zero waste to landfill target and a high percentage of packaging is diverted through reuse, recycling or composting (close to 100 percent). The recovery rate is measured and reported.
No packaging waste disposed to landfill or incineration. Closed loop systems operating, material recovered for highest value.
The most common action was setting a simple zero waste to landfi ll target across operations. Leading organisations, however, ensured that zero waste actions didn’t default to recycling, but included waste avoidance and minimisation measures, such as working with upstream suppliers to reduce secondary and tertiary packaging, shift to reusable packaging or taking back packaging.
In addition, they have found markets to divert problem wastes. Best practice would be ensuring that all materials were recovered to the high value, prioritising end-of-life channels according to the waste hierarchy. Packaging recoverability is clearly a more complex and difficult area to improve as it is likely to require significant rethinking of packaging design, choice of materials, manufacturing processes and supply chain impacts.
On-site packaging recovery Packaging efficiency Corporate strategy Industry leadership Packaging design processes Consumer engagement Supply chain management Packaging recoverability Materials sustainability
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Feature True sustainability requires a systems perspective across multiple sustainability criteria. It also needs to consider the specific issues for each company and the communities in which they operate, and these can change over time. Improving packaging recoverability is also more difficult because of the complex trade-offs that need to be made between competing environmental and social objectives. For example, it may make sense to replace reusable glass bottles with lighter weight plastic to improve the overall carbon footprint by reducing transport-related emissions. Leading companies are not only choosing materials recoverable through existing consumer channels, but also providing fi nancial and operational contributions to creating new collection or recycling services or participating in extended producer responsibility schemes. While all companies met the minimum standard of some effort to engage consumers through on-pack labelling, for about quarter of companies this was limited to the inclusion of a recycling symbol on commonly recycled packaging materials, such as glass or cardboard. Again, leading companies use labels to educate consumers about sustainable packaging and sustainable consumption. For example one company uses on-pack ecolabels, which include recovery advice as well as the performance of both the product (such as the proportion of renewable materials and certification) and the packaging (for example, proportion from recycled material and proportion recyclable).
WHAT WE LEARNED Improving packaging sustainability is a complex process. There is no standard method, formula or approach that will work for all companies all of the time. True sustainability requires a systems perspective across multiple sustainability criteria. It also needs to consider the specific issues for each company and the communities in which they operate, and these can change over time. Therefore, each company must consider its business practices, the products it sells, the packaging materials it uses and the available infrastructure and facilities in its key markets to identify appropriate sustainability strategies for packaging. The material issues for a food manufacturer are different to those of a retailer or importer, and a global brand has more influence on its supply chain than a medium sized company operating in one market. The most successful companies have adopted a structured approach involving research, stakeholder engagement, target setting and monitoring against goals. Perhaps most importantly, they understand the complexity of packaging sustainability and can make informed decisions about the inherent trade-offs between alternative sustainability strategies.
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WHAT CAN COMPANIES DO NEXT? Companies can use the performance levels for the waste-related criteria above to self-assess their current performance, and then choose key areas to focus on pushing performance up to the next level. The case studies over the page provide examples of actions that companies can take. The full research report is available online, providing the complete Packaging Sustainability framework, and detailed results for the 18 companies included in the study. Following on from this research, we are also working with the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) to develop a new Australian packaging sustainability framework. This framework will be released to signatories of the Australian Packaging Covenant towards the end of the year. More information is available directly from APCO.
WHAT ARE COMPANIES DOING TO IMPROVE PACKAGING SUSTAINABILITY? Many of the companies we interviewed are already monitoring, recording and quantifying how they are progressing towards packaging sustainability, or are taking steps towards doing so. Companies that are welladvanced towards packaging sustainability are using multiple strategies such as: ■ eliminating unnecessary components ■ concentrating products to reduce pack size ■ reducing packaging weight and volume ■ minimising or removing toxic materials ■ using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper and board ■ designing products for reuse or recycling (such as replacing foamed polystyrene and multi-material fi lms) ■ introducing reusable containers and/or refi ll packs ■ labelling containers to encourage consumers to recycle ■ engaging with consumers to improve sustainability outcomes ■ working with government and forming consortia to develop industry standards ■ creating product and material databases to assess the environmental impact of products objectively for use in packaging design and further improvement ■ optimising packaging design for packing during transport to minimise transport costs and carbon dioxide emissions, and ■ sharing data, methods and information openly with competitors to improve packaging sustainability across the sector. ■
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Feature
Best practice snapshots HENKEL Henkel is a global organisation, headquartered in Germany, which operates in three sectors: laundry and home care (such as detergents, fabric care, cleaners, sealants and surface treatments), beauty care (hair cosmetics, products for body, skin and oral care) and adhesive technologies. Packaging efficiency: Henkel has a target to reduce packaging relative to sales by 20 percent by 2020. There is a focus on continual improvement, recognising that packaging has not yet been optimised for all products. Post-consumer packaging recovery: Henkel supports regional recycling programs such as through the ‘green dot’ programs in Europe. In Hungary and Serbia, the company has cooperated with retailers to provide incentives for consumers to bring packaging back to stores for recycling. As far as possible, packaging is designed to be recyclable (compatible with existing recycling systems) or, in the case of B2B packaging, reusable. Consumer engagement: the company is undertaking a range of initiatives to improve recycling of packaging, including labelling and information on its website. There is also a strong focus on consumer engagement in sustainable consumption; for example, in how they use products (temperature, dosage). NATURA Brazil-based manufacturer Natura and its subsidiaries’ activities include the development, production, distribution and sale of cosmetics, fragrances and hygiene products. Packaging efficiency: Natura’s public packaging sustainability goal includes reducing material use in packaging as much as possible. The company measures and reports the percentage of its packaging that meets its defined ‘eco-efficient’ criteria, achieving 26 percent in 2015. As an example, Natura was the first Brazilian company to launch compact aerosols, which use 60 percent less aluminium.
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Post-consumer packaging recovery: Natura aims to use at least 74 percent recyclable material in the total mass of its packaging (57.5 percent in 2014), and to collect and recycle at least 50 percent of the total packaging put onto the market. A recovery pilot, using reverse logistics, collected 306 tonnes of waste. Natura is also working with external stakeholders to improve systems for post-consumer packaging recovery. Long-term, the company aims to collect more packaging than it generates. Consumer engagement: Natura currently uses on-pack ecolabels, which include recovery advice as well as the performance of both the product and the packaging. Natura consultants encourage consumers to consciously consume and recycle. The company is planning a strategy to mobilise consumers further. GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS This India-based company manufactures and distributes fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). Packaging efficiency: Godrej collects and reports data on packaging consumption per unit of product. It has a strategy to reduce material consumption and improve packaging efficiency. On-site packaging recovery: Godrej has a formal target of zero waste to landfill by 2020, and measures and reports all waste. Currently over 95 percent of on-site waste is recovered for reuse, recycling and, in some cases, return to suppliers. TESCO One of the world’s leading international retailers, Tesco’s principal activity is food retailing, but its products also include electricals, home entertainment, clothing, health and beauty, stationery, cook shop and soft furnishings, and seasonal goods such as barbecues and garden furniture. Packaging efficiency: Tesco measures the quantity of packaging put on the market, but this does not
appear to be publicly reported. There has been a year-on-year decline in packaging weight per unit gram of product. This is considered a better measure to control for fluctuations in sales volume. On-site packaging recovery: Tesco does not send any packaging waste to landfill – 100 percent is reused or recycled. The company has identified an opportunity to improve the quality of recycling. Getting waste in the correct bin will reduce material contamination and improve reuse and recyclability. Tesco was the first Irish retailer to recycle all in-store packaging. Post-consumer packaging recovery: recyclability is considered in the design process for packaging. Tesco also provides recycling bins for customers at its larger stores. There is a trend for more innovative designs that will allow consumers to reuse packaging (such as laundry liquid refills), but this is only just beginning. Consumer engagement: Tesco uses WRAP’s (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production’s) On-Pack Recycling Label on almost all packaging to indicate whether it can or cannot be recycled. Some packaging also includes information for consumers on reducing food waste. JERÓNIMO MARTINS This Portuguese company is principally engaged in the food retail sector. The business is structured in three segments: distribution, manufacturing and services. Packaging efficiency: the company has successfully reduced the amount of packaging going to market. It has prepared a number of case studies where improvements have been made and a list of planned initiatives for the future. Post-consumer packaging recovery: all packaging is designed to be recyclable. In Portugal, most stores have a recycling collection for small packaging components.
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Profile
The extraordinary Veena Sahajwalla is redefining and reimagining what it means to be sustainable.
WOMAN OF STEEL 26 | CWS ISSUE 4 | 2016
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I
t’s one seriously impressive resumé. Veena Sahajwalla is a professor, engineer, inventor, TV star, but the Indian-born academic is characteristically modest about her stellar career. As director of the SMaRT Centre at UNSW (University of New South Wales), Sahajwalla has been at the forefront of research into sustainable materials and technology, with a particular emphasis on creating solutions of environmental benefit. She’s the inventor of ‘green steel’ – a process that takes recycled plastics and rubber tyres into steelmaking – in itself an enormous contribution to reduce the use of coke in electric arc steel furnaces. But it’s probably never occurred to Sahajwalla to rest on her laurels. Her enthusiasm to continue to find another way of helping businesses around the world be more resource efficient and environmentally sustainable seems to be without end. One of the more recent projects, developed with her SMaRT Centre team, is the advent of microfactories that help overcome issues with scale for businesses looking to recycle and reprocess materials (featured in CWS Issue 6). Simply, Sahajwalla and her team look at the word ‘problem’ and associate it with ‘opportunity’. “I’ve always been fascinated by materials and how we use them in so many different ways in our lives,” she says. “Let’s look at what electronic products have done for us; they’ve been an equalising force in our society because they allow people all over the world to access information and services, such as education and health. It’s incredible that such small things in our hands can give us the opportunity to be so well-connected.
My personal journey has been about seeing materials and whether they can have a new use or a new life. That applies to clothes, phones, computers – passing them on to people who need them or taking the materials and using them in a new way to achieve a better outcome for us all. www.cwsmagazine.com.au
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A moment with the Mahatma If Sahajwalla could pick the brains of anyone from history, she says she would choose Mahatma Gandhi. “I really do see him as an inspirational figure, not only for the role he played in shaping India, but his whole approach to living in a way that is simple. “He made fabrics and fibres, spinning yarn with his own hands. That, to me, is symbolic of what we need today. Also, it wasn’t easy for him to stand up against mightily powerful people so that he could bring others along on the journey. “We recently produced a set of Gandhi glasses that were presented by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April this year. They were made from recycled plastics we produced at the SMaRT Centre. The fullsized pair was given to him and we made 250 for each of the guests at a dinner in New Delhi hosted by the Australian Government. “I do get excited about a lot of the things I see around me, but I need to have discipline and look at what we can do immediately and build a program around, and also work with industry partners and get them excited about the ideas.” Sahajwalla has been in Australia for 20 years, working initially with the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation). Her career here has also included a stint as a judge on the ABC TV series, The New Inventors. “What I love about living here is
that the people I work with are incredibly passionate, have a cando attitude and anything is possible. As soon as I landed in Australia, it didn’t take me long to realise I’d found my home. “I love that we can be having a serious conversation one minute and crack a joke the next. Humour has always been a big part of my personality, but when I was growing up, I had to be very careful about jokes. There were certain things you couldn’t joke about, particularly with your parents, and often you can’t speak up and say what you feel. “I’d be at school and want to stand up and disagree with some things a teacher said. This wasn’t considered a polite thing to do and, as a result, you tend to hold yourself back. “I tell my students and staff to call me Veena and that we’re all equals. We all learn from each other and I encourage the people around me to challenge and be challenged. That’s what makes Australia such an incredible place. “And I have to say there’s another thing I’ve really taken to about Australia – red wine. I never had it before I came here and I took to it like a duck to water. My favourite is shiraz. “For any human being, I’m sure most people would agree, is that if you’ve used your heart, your head and your passions and you’ve shared it with other people to help even more of society benefit from it, then you’ve achieved a perfect success.”
“But the other end of the spectrum annoys me – all the things we take for granted, the resources that go into providing basic items, such as clothes, that we then discard without a moment’s thought. We’ve gone down a path where consumerism has, ironically, put us out of touch with reality, even though we’ve never been so connected.” In that linear ‘take, make and discard’ framework, Sahajwalla says it’s incumbent upon every person to ask themselves whether such an ethos is a reasonable thing to do. “If we all stop to ask ourselves, before we throw out those clothes or juice bottles or phones, whether there is another option, a
transformative approach for those materials. We may make a difference – and inspire others as well.” That attitude harks back to Sahajwalla’s upbringing in Mumbai. “Every day I saw people who had so little make so much out of it and today I’m always looking for another use for something, or to give a new life to something that’s not wanted by someone else. “I was out driving one day and saw a garage sale. I bought a denim shirt that doubles as a jacket for $2. The woman selling it said it didn’t fit her anymore, but it was perfect for me for the weekends when I didn’t want a heavy jacket. I love that whole process.”
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Profile
If it’s acceptable to [hand down clothes and toys] within your family, then we should all be excited to broaden out this concept to a macro view. SHARING THE RESOURCES AND RESPONSIBILITY Sahajwalla says the sustainability of our planet rests on collaboration. “My personal journey has been about seeing materials and whether they can have a new use or a new life. That applies to clothes, phones, computers – passing them on to people who need them or taking the materials and using them in a new way to achieve a better outcome for us all. “That’s where my research spun out. Let’s take clothes – if something is no longer wearable, the fabrics might contain synthetic polymers that are still useful and valuable. They can be transformed and that’s probably the crux of what we do
at the SMaRT Centre, to enable transformation. So what if a piece of clothing has been ripped apart? What about that plastic bottle that has a short life in the hands of the consumer? Our team looks at what it could become and how that transformation could occur. “Green manufacturing is something I get very excited about. We need to explore multiple processing solutions – low temperature, high temperature, what the possibilities of the materials are. “And apart from looking at the process of developing products through green manufacturing, we need to address the safety and sustainability challenges – so that we don’t compromise the rights of humans to be safe.” But what does sustainability actually mean? Sahajwalla says it’s much more than recycling and reuse. “If we have core principles of safety, a commitment to making a high quality and durable product, then it’s possible we don’t have as much of a ‘throw away’ mentality. “A critical component is the social licence. There’s no point looking at
transforming a product unless we ask ourselves if someone will be prepared to use the end result. We’ve seen this at a micro-level – families handing down clothes and toys is something we all do. If it’s acceptable to do that within your family, then we should all be excited to broaden out this concept to a macro view.” Sahajwalla urges everyone to consider the impact of their choices. “Regardless of what forum I speak at, communitybased or technical conferences, I try to encourage people to unleash the power of their imagination to deliver true value to society. “Can we all collaborate? Society, business, academia; everyone coming together to work on what needs to happen to save on consumption of materials and energy, minimise waste and pollution and how we can help. “If we can achieve a win/win outcome, if we can feed all the micro innovations happening throughout the world into transformations and if we can look at the economic viability of any of these solutions, then we’ll get there.” ■
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The focus on plastic bags and coffee cups into the waste stream is always welcome, writes MATT GENEVER, but he says larger structural issues need to be tackled.
Opinion
Sustainability’s missing link
F
or those of us in the waste industry, talk about plastic bags and coffee cups somewhat pales in comparison to some of the larger structural items that still exist. Don’t get me wrong – the focus on waste and recycling issues being generated by the ABC’s #WarOnWaste is a great step forward in raising the profile of sustainability’s ‘missing link’. But the challenge for an industry like ours is that there are so many material streams, each with their own unique requirements, that it’s hard to know where to focus the attention. Some of the really big things, those classic mind benders, become almost too hard to think about, and so often we don’t. There’s no doubt the community has a long way to go before it understands the bigger questions at play. Things like the #WarOnWaste campaign help drive momentum and now is as good an opportunity as we’ve ever had to get a conversation going. Essentially, we need to talk about what the waste industry must look at over the next 10 to 20 years. I’m firmly of the belief that the macro debate has to start with the community rather than the industry responding once the community knocks on its door. For me, there are three major issues.
The challenge is that there are so many material streams, each with their own unique requirements. There is little, if any, oversight over this market and I am left wondering whether Australia is just exporting its obligations to manage waste appropriately to the developing world. We’re talking about a really fine line between what we would class as something that should be traded on the open market versus just trying to export our liability. A great example of that is baled tyre exports: 20,000 to 40,000 tonnes a year leaves the country. It’s not shredded to a specific size for a customer’s needs – the whole tyre is just compressed. So just because it’s baled, does that mean it should be classed as a commodity or a processed material? And should we be comfortable with exporting something that the World Health Organisation has directly linked to the spread of dengue fever? This is one area where I’d love to see a good dialogue between government, community and industry.
WASTE EXPORTS We live in a highly commoditised world and the waste and resource recovery sector is no different. According to the Waste Accounts released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we export more than four million tonnes of waste per annum. While much of this is legitimate trade in processed materials (such as metal, paper and cardboard), global trade in baled waste tyres, unprocessed e-waste and hazardous materials are all increasing annually.
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HAZARDOUS WASTE STOCKPILES A recent federal Department of the Environment and Energy report into the fate of spent pot lining (SPL), a by-product of manufacturing aluminium, suggests that some 700,000 tonnes remain stockpiled around the country. SPL really ticks the boxes when it comes to hazardous waste. It is toxic, corrosive and has a habit of exploding when coming into contact with water. This
is just one of a number of high-risk waste materials currently being stockpiled in large quantities, many with no feasible treatment or safe disposal options. These sorts of stockpiles are something the industry doesn’t really talk about. Rather, when we hear of hazardous waste, it’s more often than not connected with contaminated soil from building sites. But what I’m talking about is nasty stuff, such as from metals manufacturing and mining tailings. What happens now when the reduction in commodity prices means some activities and businesses are becoming less viable? No one is talking about this.
ORGANISED CRIME It’s not quite worthy of Tony Soprano, but organised crime in the waste sector remains a challenge. Sectors such as endof-life vehicles, demolition waste, asbestos and waste tyres still have thriving cash economies that encourage illegitimate operators to collect and illegally dump or export waste materials. Some states have invested resources to crack down on these activities – Queensland’s Taskforce Tora comes to mind – but more needs to be done to level the playing field for legally compliant operators. While I don’t want to downplay the importance of managing plastic bags and coffee cups, I’d love to see some increased dialogue about some of these bigger challenges that need government and industry to work together in order to solve them. For me, these are the ‘elephants in the room’ for the waste industry. ■ Matt Genever is managing director of Reincarnate, a strategic environmental consultancy specialising in waste and resource recovery and sustainability advisory services.
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Case study
What can Australia learn from battery stewardship in North America? HELEN LEWIS and LIBBY CHAPLIN report.
I want your… batteries
H
andheld batteries have been on the Australian Government’s product stewardship list for a number of years, and the time for talk is coming to an end. Battery stewardship in Australia is reaching a pivotal moment. Key people in industry and government have been working together to evaluate the best path forward for a national recycling scheme for handheld batteries. The Industry Working Group (IWG) established by the Queensland Government on behalf of all jurisdictions has assessed options and made recommendations for how to move forward with a national approach. While further work is required to refine the approach, there is broad agreement on the key elements and rollout process. The next step is for government to review the recommendations and decide on the path forward. In this context, it is timely to reflect on the experience of other stewardship programs, particularly from the US.
PROGRESS TO DATE In evaluating the options, the IWG’s final report, prepared by Pacific Environment, determined that a solely voluntary approach is impractical given the characteristics of this problematic waste stream and the fragmented nature of the industry. In addition, as this article makes clear, the US experience indicates that purely voluntary programs are not always the most effective approach. Industry participants – both retailers and brands – see the need for a stewardship program and key players would be willing to contribute if a level playing field could be ensured. The conclusion of the analysis is that industry will not contribute the necessary funds to create the program unless their competitors are also compelled to participate.
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Some form of ‘light touch’ regulation would therefore be required for this approach to work but, once established, it would allow industry to either participate in an industryled accredited scheme or create its own corporate take-back program. Through a national umbrella scheme, the industry would establish a coordinated network of drop-off locations and community awareness campaigns necessary to progressively move our current recovery rate of non-lead acid batteries, which is around three percent, to a considerably more responsible outcome. The recommended path is not without precedent. We don’t need to look far to find examples of successful model stewardship programs for handheld batteries. Here in Australia, both Battery World and Aldi offer free take-back and recycling programs for handheld batteries. These are isolated examples that work well, but offer limited options for consumers. For a more comprehensive, industryfunded scheme, we can look to North America, where the Call2Recycle program has been successfully running a rechargeable battery recycling program for over 25 years.
SHOWING THE WAY The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC), now Call2Recycle Inc, was established in 1994 in response to several regulatory developments.
In 1991 the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) announced that rechargeable nickel cadmium (NiCd) batteries would be classified as a hazardous waste and regulated under the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA). Connecticut was the first state to implement a recycling mandate in 1989, followed by Minnesota, Maine and Vermont in 1991. Six other states followed over the next two years. At the same time, regulators in several states were threatening to ban the sale of mercury and cadmium-containing products, including rechargeable batteries. The battery industry responded quickly. In 1991, the five largest manufacturers of rechargeable NiCd batteries – Gates (later Energizer), Panasonic, Saft, Sanyo and Varta – established an industry association, the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association (PRBA). PRBA undertook several pilot recycling programs, and in 1994 established the RBRC as a new not-for-profit company. The initiative was designed to avoid the introduction of any further mandates.
Stewardship strategies In 1996 RBRC launched its first national consumer rechargeable battery recycling campaign, called ‘Charge Up to Recycle’. RBRC started collecting rechargeable NiCd batteries in the US in 1996 and in Canada in 1997. Its scope was extended to nickel metal hydride (NiMH), small sealed lead acid
“But over the last several years, it has become increasingly clear that voluntary programs cannot survive long-term unless there is a strong mechanism to ensure that all players in the industry comply.” – Carl Smith, CEO Call2Recycle www.cwsmagazine.com.au
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Success factors in North America ■ start small and learn as you go ■ address the free rider issue ■ establish minimum standards for
responsible recycling ■ ensure the collection service is
convenient and accessible for consumers, and ■ engage consumers through
communication and education.
We don’t need to look far for a potential solution. Call2Recycle has developed a model for ‘light touch’ regulation by state governments in the US, which would address the free rider problem and ensure minimum performance standards. (SSLA) and lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries in 2001, mobile phones in 2004 and nickel zinc (Ni-Zn) batteries in 2008. The program was rebranded Call2Recycle (originally the name of the phone recycling program) in 2004. In most US states the program is largely voluntary. Some states mandate collection of NiCd and/or SSLA batteries, and two states mandate collection of all rechargeable batteries. The scope of Call2Recycle has broadened further in recent years to include primary batteries where this is mandated by legislation or supported by governments, including Vermont in the US and several provinces in Canada (British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island). Rechargeable battery manufacturers and portable consumer electronics companies fund the program by paying a licence fee to use Call2Recycle’s battery recycling seal, which is printed on the batteries and/or product packaging. A toll-free number on the seal allows consumers to locate their closest collection site in the US and Canada.
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Fees are based on the amount of product sold into the market. By 2014 Call2Recycle had around 300 participating companies (called ‘stewards’), which account for approximately 85 percent of the portable rechargeable battery market. Collection boxes are placed in retail stores, offices and municipal facilities. Consumers are asked to place each rechargeable battery in a separate plastic bag before they put it in the box, to meet transport regulations for dangerous goods. There are about 34,000 public collection sites in the US and Canada. The collected batteries are sorted by chemistry and sent to recycling partners in North America such as Wistron and INMETCO. Call2Recycle is one of the first organisations of its kind to have obtained Responsible Recycling (R2) and ISO 14001 certification, as well as e-Stewards recognition by the Basel Action Network. Despite its successes, in 2014 Call2Recycle started to advocate for regulations to deal with an increasing number of ‘free riders’. In 2014 and 2015 it collaborated with other industry bodies to
develop a model state government Bill that would mandate producer responsibility for all consumer batteries. In his testimony to Senate Committee hearings on Vermont’s draft bill to mandate recycling of single-use batteries in 2014, Call2Recycle CEO Carl Smith explained why: “For most of our 20-year existence, we have opposed mandatory product stewardship, believing that an inspired and diligent industry could successfully run an effective stewardship program. We certainly have. But over the last several years, it has become increasingly clear that voluntary programs cannot survive long-term unless there is a strong mechanism to ensure that all players in the industry comply. It wasn’t necessary for us in 1994; it is now.”
Shared value outcomes Call2Recycle does not calculate a recycling rate – instead measuring its performance in terms of volumes collected and consumer accessibility. On both of these measures the effectiveness of the program has been steadily improving. In 2014 Call2Recycle collected 5.4 million kilograms of batteries and mobile phones, and recorded the 18th consecutive year of growth. Around 90 percent of the population in North America has access to a drop-off or collection service. From the point of view of most industry stewards – the battery manufacturers and importers – Call2Recycle is primarily a way to meet their compliance obligations in
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states that mandate product take-back. According to Smith in an interview in 2015, however, its benefits go beyond compliance: “[Call2Recycle]… has also become a powerful advocate for product stewardship, bringing together the diverse interests of its stakeholders in pursuit of a shared goal to keep batteries out of landfills and protect the environment.” Retailers participate in the program for a variety of reasons, which may include regulatory compliance, meeting existing sustainability commitments or consumer expectations, and increased traffic and sales. In 2012 Call2Recycle commissioned research on consumer recycling behaviour and the potential benefits for participating retailers. This found that, while not necessarily a key driver of store traffic, recycling does increase visiting frequency. Recyclers typically either shop or browse in the store when dropping off batteries or mobile phones.
IMPLICATIONS FOR BATTERY STEWARDSHIP IN AUSTRALIA Call2Recycle’s Smith has suggested that there are several benefits from starting voluntarily, even if regulation is eventually required to address free riders. These include learning about infrastructure and transport requirements, understanding what can be done economically, and allowing early movers to get started and provide leadership. Voluntary initiatives also allow participants to start slowly and learn as they go, as he points out: “The other thing is you can gear up over time. In highly regulated jurisdictions there are pretty strict expectations on collection rates, on dates, this and that, and it requires substantial upfront investment to meet that. You can ramp up more slowly over time when it’s a voluntary program rather than a prescriptive program.” Voluntary battery stewardship initiatives in Australia have helped to build our local understanding of collection systems, levels of consumer participation, end markets for collected batteries and the commercial
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Queensland power tool battery recycling trial The trial, funded by the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, battery manufacturers and retailers, investigated the feasibility of collecting power tool batteries through hardware stores. Collection bins were provided in 19 Bunnings, Masters and Trade Tools stores in Brisbane for a nine-month trial period. 2300 power tool batteries (1222 kilograms) were collected and recycled. 64 percent of surveyed power tool users said they would be likely to drop off used power tool batteries for recycling if it was free and easy to use. Over 90 percent of all surveyed consumers indicated that the ability to recycle batteries in a store would make them feel more positive about the retailer. The trial provided insights into costs, container design, communications and funding models for an ongoing program.
benefits for companies that show leadership in a non-regulated environment. Research and pilot projects initiated by the Australian Battery Recycling Initiative (ABRI) and the IWG have added further to our understanding. A detailed mass balance of handheld batteries (2013) was followed by pilot projects for power tool batteries and rechargeable handheld batteries in Queensland (2015-16). More recently, the analysis of financial options tested the feasibility of a voluntary, industry-funded program. This revealed a reluctance by some companies to pay for recycling without some assurance that there
will be a level playing field; i.e. that their competitors will also be involved. Once again, we don’t need to look far for a potential solution. Call2Recycle has developed a model for ‘light touch’ regulation by state governments in the US, which would address the free rider problem and ensure minimum performance standards. The battery industry would still have the flexibility to design and implement a program within this framework to ensure that the stewardship scheme is effective and efficient. Given the potential impacts of this waste stream and the latest research from Planet Ark indicating consumer support for battery recycling, ABRI believes that the time for action by the Federal Government is now. By taking targeted action to establish ‘light regulations’ to address the free rider issue, the Government will capitalise on the important groundwork provided by the industry working group. More importantly, it will ensure that the significant investment of industry and government to date will result in very real solutions that will lead to the responsible recovery of valuable resources, reduce the risks for landfill operators, and improve community health and safety. ■ Libby Chaplin is chief executive of the Australian Battery Recycling Initiative (ABRI) and Helen Lewis is a product stewardship consultant and was CEO of ABRI until October 2016.
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Feature: Sustainability
Making the right connection What role can the Internet of Things play in protecting the environment and achieving a sustainable future? JOHN GERTSAKIS reports.
T
he fourth Industrial Revolution has arrived and it will serve to monitor, manage and protect the environment in a unique way. In particular, the Internet of Things (IoT) and its ability to enable instantaneous connectivity between billions of devices is likely to positively transform industries, sectors and communities. Most importantly it will be a key element of the Circular Economy. Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) will make use of data at unprecedented levels extracting maximum use and value from products and materials, and directly contributing to waste avoidance and circular solutions. The IoT is a wide-reaching term with depth and diversity; it’s gathering momentum as it demonstrates its industrial, social and environmental relevance. The sum of IoT is much more than embedded sensors, networks and gadgets. It is the driving force behind the fourth Industrial Revolution. And a key part of its infrastructure will be 5G or the fi fth generation of mobile technologies.
Coined by UK innovator, technology pioneer, brand manager and radio frequency identification (RFID) expert, Kevin Ashton, the concept of IoT was borne out of his interest in how wireless networks could be used to allow physical objects to communicate. It was very much about data and potential services as opposed to just a coherent gathering of products with sensors. Operational efficiency, asset utilisation, customer experience and faster decision-making are all part of the mix. Ashton’s defi nition of IoT is illuminating: “The Internet of Things means sensors connected to the internet and behaving in an internet-like way: making open, ad hoc connections, sharing data freely, allowing unexpected applications and creating a nervous system for the planet that enables computers to understand the things in the world around them.” As a network of connected devices, IoT collects, shares and analyses data in real time and this is where the value resides; i.e. how the data is used to deliver services that can be monetised or build competitive advantage. Many in business, government and
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academia say it will catalyse a major shift in where, how and when technology appears in our lives, albeit in a sometimes seamless and virtual manner. At a macro level, IoT refers to devices connected and communicating over the internet with each other and with us. Indeed, it simultaneously builds on machine to machine (M2M) communications and the cloud to maximise connectivity with purpose. It’s not a new concept, and has been discussed since the internet was born; however, its current trajectory goes beyond principles and concepts and is coalescing into diverse practical applications that many say will transform our lives across multiple sectors, industries and activities. Ray Owen, managing director – Nokia Oceania, underscores the magnitude. “5G is the next generation of radio systems and network architecture that will enable significant new use cases, new business opportunities and new ways for people to benefit from communications,” he says. Gartner forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on endpoints and services will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017. “Services are dominated by the professional category (in which businesses contract with external providers in order to design, install and operate IoT systems); however, connectivity services (through communications service providers) and consumer services will grow at a faster pace,” reports the research company. The projections associated with IoT are both voluminous and extensive. The figures around economic value are so large that they seem beyond reality; however, there are numerous credible pundits, corporates and institutions that are increasingly on the same page in terms of economic benefit.
MORE THAN AN INTERNET-CONNECTED FRIDGE We have heard of internet-connected appliances and fridges that reorder depleting supplies or warn against use-by dates. And we have probably experienced tech savvy friends and colleagues who remotely activate domestic lighting, heating and cooling before arriving home, but the IoT is much more than novel electronics. The opportunity to monitor and control our energy and water use in real time and respond accordingly will become mainstream, and not just an activity of eco-warriors. Importantly, IoT is rapidly evolving into a much more pervasive and positive ecosystem with an extensive taxonomy of applications. From autonomous vehicles, hyper-efficient logistics and smart cities, through to remote area healthcare, natural resources monitoring and production line optimisation, IoT has
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The opportunity to monitor and control our energy and water use in real time and respond accordingly will become mainstream, and not just an activity of eco-warriors. the potential to deliver wide-reaching social, economic and environment benefits. Sensible planning and evaluation will also be required to ensure that impacts and issues are known, managed and addressed. Security and privacy are obvious areas being worked on. The reach and applications of IoT remain significant and cross-sectoral with research, implementation and speculation by various entities indicating that no sector will be left untouched by IoT. Intel, Cisco, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, HP-Aruba and Australia’s own IoT Alliance Australia tell a compelling story of sectors and industries that will benefit. Ericsson notes that we are on the brink of the networked society. Operators and businesses who play a role in creating those connections and extracting their potential value will capture the benefits of this tremendous opportunity. Intel talks about smart manufacturing, smart building, smart homes and smart transport, where IoT will take a stronghold, while Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research sees healthcare, wearables, oil and gas, as well as industrial applications as key areas of activity. Andrew Penn, Telstra’s chief executive, also highlights key attributes and future possibilities. “The step up to 5G will mean more speed, but 5G is much more than just faster speeds,” he says. “It will also underpin the coming of age of the Internet of Things, billions of connected devices that will enable a fully connected and interactive world, which includes new possibilities in areas such as fully connected homes, offices and factories, autonomous vehicles and remote healthcare.” There is no shortage of specific examples to be distilled from these areas, from autonomous vehicles and drones through to systems for monitoring oyster farms, water quality and rainfall related yield. The 5G mobile network and its impact on IoT innovations will spawn applications that add value through high utility and functional benefit, while also optimising the hyper-efficient use of resources and consumables. Sustainable development can benefit from the IoT, and could be a game-changer in many industries. The range of products and services will be diverse and transform industries, communities and sectors.
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Transforming environmental management, agriculture and mining: ■ energy and environment – smart grids that improve energy efficiency, real-time monitoring of air and water quality, sensors in waste collection and recycling bins to improve resource recovery, performance smart grids for energy efficiency, and ■ agriculture and mining – monitoring of livestock, cropping and weather conditions to optimise use of water, fertilisers and pesticides; use of driverless vehicles in mining.
Transforming Australian industries and maximising efficiencies: ■ industrial applications – sensors and systems that automate production, improve workplace safety and maximise energy productivity ■ vehicles and mobility – use of sensors and collision avoidance capabilities to improve safety, efficiency and emergency responsiveness, and ■ transport and logistics – allowing vehicles to communicate with each other and infrastructure to allow fleet tracking, emissions reduction and improved road safety.
Transforming communities and creating smart spaces and places: ■ emergency services and public safety – sensors and video technology to monitor and manage major events, traffic safety and allow improved emergency responsiveness ■ healthcare – high-speed video technology allowing improved connectivity to conduct diagnosis and treatment, real-time monitoring and warning systems, and ■ smart cities and homes – sensors and systems that assist with navigation, fi nding services and facilities, monitoring outages, as well as maximising energy/ resource use and waste efficiency.
Step-change speeds in entertainment and media: ■ videos and movies – high-speed downloads will significantly enhance web browsing, social media activity and video viewing as consumers demands more data faster, and ■ immersive experiences – Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) made possible through various devices will create simulated environments and experiences for entertainment and industrial application.
THE ROLE OF MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS – INTRODUCING 5G 5G is the next generation of mobile technologies, services and applications, set to transform the way we live and work in Australia. 5G mobile networks and services will deliver faster speeds and more responsive networks with greater capacity and lower latency (reduced network latency).
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5G will enable and accelerate significant innovations related to IoT, including driverless vehicles, smart homes, smart cities and highly automated industrial processes. In many respects, the future promulgation of IoT in Australia will depend heavily on the products, services, systems and networks supplied by the IT and telecommunications industries, as well as the innovators and designers who create the end-use services that truly meet consumer expectations and environmental objectives. It becomes evident that there is an immense level of research, design, development and investment being channelled into IoT related products, services and infrastructure, and, with the approach of 5G and the support of government with timely and enabling policies, Australia can look forward to widespread uptake of IoT by industry, government and the public. Furthermore, the mobile telecommunications industry will continue to work proactively to empower end-users while also directly contributing to sustainable economic growth in a measured and responsible manner through the evolution of a mobileenabled Australia. The time has come to drive an explicitly positive agenda that demonstrates the role ICT can play to protect the environment and achieve a suitable future. This requires government to get the policy settings right, while allowing industry to forge ahead with developing products and services that are socially desirable, economically sensible and environmentally affi rmative. ■ John Gertsakis is manager – Communications and Outreach at the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association.
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Opinion
DAVID R MONTGOMERY explains why we need to work from the ground up to ensure our agricultural land literally doesn’t go to waste.
Make our soil great again
I
was fortunate enough to spend what would have been my third year in college working in Australia as a junior geologist in Queensland. As I was raised in California, the tropical climate and different geology forged landscapes unlike any I had seen or studied. It was a great introduction to how universal principles can play out differently. Recently I came to see a parallel in how regenerative farming practices can return health to agricultural soils. Most of us don’t think much about the soil, let alone its health. But we should. Restoring soil fertility on a global scale is one of humanity’s best options for making progress in the daunting challenges of feeding everybody, weathering climate change and conserving biodiversity. Widespread mechanisation and adoption of chemical fertilisers and pesticides revolutionised 20th century agriculture. But it also took a hidden toll on the soil. Since World War II farmers around the world have abandoned a third of the world’s cropland. In the US, our soils have already lost half their organic matter – half their native fertility! What is at stake if we don’t reverse the global trend? Consider that impoverished trouble spots like Syria, Libya and Iraq are among the societies living with an ancient legacy of degraded soil. It will become increasingly difficult to feed a growing population if we continue to lose productive agricultural land. Fortunately, there are practical ways to improve soil health and lay the foundation for resilient and lasting agriculture. How do I know? While researching my new book, Growing A Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life, I travelled the world to meet farmers restoring their soil on large commercial and small subsistence farms. From Pennsylvania to the Dakotas and from
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Since World War II farmers around the world have abandoned a third of the world’s cropland. Africa to Latin America, I saw compelling evidence that soil can be restored remarkably quickly. These farmers shared a new philosophy and a common vision for how to adopt practices that conserve and protect soil life. They have stopped ploughing and minimised ground disturbance. They have kept the ground covered year-round through growing cover crops (especially legumes) along with commercial crops. And they have adopted more complex crop rotations and don’t just plant the same thing over and over again. On farm after farm, I saw how these methods – if adopted all together – regenerate fertile soil. I was surprised to find that it takes farmers who adopt all three techniques just several years to begin harvesting profitable results. Crop yields and soil organic matter increase while their fuel, fertiliser and pesticide use falls dramatically. The resulting savings improve both the soil and the farmers’ bottom line. I also noticed that their fields consistently have more pollinators – butterflies and bees – than neighbouring conventional farms. Using less insecticide and retaining more native plants on the perimeter of their fields translates into more predatory species to manage insect pests, and far less need for pesticides. Innovative ranchers likewise showed me methods that leave their soil better off. Their cows graze pastures the way buffalo once did – concentrating in a small area for a short period followed by a long recovery time before returning to it. This pattern stimulates plants to push sugary exudates out of their roots. And this, in turn, feeds the soil life that provides the plants with growth-promoting hormones, nutrients and minerals they need to rebuild their browsed bodies aboveground.
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Letting cows graze also builds soil organic matter through dispersing manure across the land rather than concentrating it in feedlot sewage lagoons. Of course, what conditions or traits define a healthy soil will vary around the world. And while the specific practices that work in other regions may not be what works best to implement soilbuilding principles in Australia, the consensus among fellow scientists I talked with held that the amount of organic matter in the soil offers the single best indicator of soil health. How much carbon could the world’s farmers and ranchers park underground? Estimates vary – a lot. But farmers I visited had more than doubled the carbon content of their soil over a decade or two. If farmers around the world did the same to their soil it could offset a substantial portion of global fossil fuel emissions for decades to come. Soil restoration will not solve world hunger, stop climate change or prevent further loss of biodiversity. No single thing can solve these problems. But the innovative farmers I met around the world showed me that adopting the full suite of conservation agriculture practices can provide a better livelihood and significant environmental benefits for conventional and organic farms alike. Restoring fertility to the world’s degraded agricultural soils is one of the most pressing, and under-recognised infrastructure projects humanity faces. A global effort to do this would pay dividends for generations to come. ■ David R Montgomery is the author of Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life, a MacArthur Fellow and Dean’s Professor of Geomorphology at the University of Washington.
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It’s grossly inefficient to waste valuable useable resources and throw them into landfill. It’s madness. Linear economic models mean huge costs, lost resources and negative externalities. If you were starting with a blank piece of paper, it’s not how you’d design an economy.
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Feature: Circular economy
Making it policy Does government need to seriously rethink its approach to policy to give Australia the best chance of embracing the circular economy? MICHELLE DUNNER reports.
A
s with a great many initiatives designed to break the linear mould of ‘take, make, waste’, it seems the European Commission is showing the world the way forward, recently establishing a legal framework to foster a circular economy throughout its member nations and adopt a zero-waste program. The Commission considers this move will result in a range of tangible economic and environmental benefits – a boost to recycling, the prevention of the loss of valuable resources and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, along with economic growth, job creation and new business models. For governments the world over, the benefits would seem to be compelling. The framework’s goals are to recycle 70 percent of municipal waste and 80 percent of packaging material by 2030 – achieving that, and other measures, the Commission says has the potential to save businesses in the EU around AUS$880 billion. A recent article in The Guardian identified five countries that have already moved beyond this EU framework – Denmark, the
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Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden and Japan – so what’s stopping Australia and local business from enjoying similar bottom line impacts? Grant Musgrove, chief executive of the Australian Council on Recycling (ACOR), says there is a series of barriers here – mainly emanating from government policy, or the lack thereof. “By and large, government policy in Australia, be it local, state or federal, is based on the linear model of the waste hierarchy,” Musgrove says. “This is standard practice, without much in the way of discussion or debate. But the way to make policy for circular models is very different. This is something that is widely accepted internationally, but not yet front and centre of policy-making here, although there are some notable exceptions. “We’re also seeing an increasing rate of material complexity that is harder to, both commercially and technically, recover resources – and that increases the cost per unit of recycling. Unlike Europe, we’re not legislating around sustainable design.”
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THE ROLE OF ACADEMIA Musgrove says another major barrier to formulating and adopting circular economy policy is the role of universities. “They are teaching graduates only the one tool and that’s life cycle analysis, which throws up some hopeless boundary issues and questions about how things are calculated,” he says. “All we get out of it is some fancy modelling where boundaries are drawn and subsequently often misused by companies in greenwashing. They can justify using the lowest cost materials while still seeming as though they’re aligning with environmental outcomes.”
A LINEAR MINDSET AND REVENUE FLOWS Musgrove says governments don’t focus on sector profitability or the sustainability of industry development, and that is the biggest barrier to developing circular policy. “One of Australia’s biggest challenges is to ensure the economy is not so reliant on the mining industry,” he says. “Governments are more than happy to give billions of dollars in subsidies to mining industry for virgin resources, but they should be subsidising what they want to happen and taxing things they don’t want to happen – and there’s a whole debate on what should be supported in terms of virgin versus secondary or recovered resources. “We’ve seen recently a company seeking government support to build a rail line for a new coal development. Businesses involved in secondary resources would love that kind of support, but the Government is stuck in a linear mindset and propagating that model. “If we go down a level to state jurisdictions, pretty much all state governments are hooked on the revenue they get from landfi ll and, while there are programs and initiatives to recover and recycle resources, there are always going to be unavoidable residues. For example, we could recover 75 percent of the resources contained within a car, but the rest might be complex plastics that have been co-mingled and can’t be recovered – they go to landfi ll. “In those sorts of cases, sustainable industries are effectively being taxed for things they can’t avoid. As such, it becomes harder to run sustainable businesses and move towards a circular economy. “Waste levies can be inherently good or bad. A badly designed waste levy is very destructive to the recycling industry. But governments accumulate these funds and they prop up a great many state budgets. It is, ultimately, holding back industry development and a move to a more sustainable economic model.” Musgrove says Victoria’s sustainability fund is wholly derived from landfi ll levy revenue. “It has around $500 million in accrued funds – around 20 percent of the
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State Government’s entire budget surplus – and it’s sitting there instead of being used for its intended and legislated purpose, to do things – enhance resource recovery and for climate change initiatives.” Victoria does have some very strong sustainable businesses and industries, according to Musgrove. “SMEs in Victoria are getting access to a lot of education, resources and training to make their businesses more resource efficient. That may not be a game changer, but it is generating some good local outcomes and case studies. “But there are some very high-profi le successes, such as Visy. People might see them as a provider of kerbside services, but Visy has been able to develop circular economy strategies that insure the company against material depletion or price volatility and ensure they have the material inputs for their packaging business. It makes price fluctuations in commodity markets almost immaterial for companies like that.”
A badly designed waste levy is very destructive to the recycling industry. But governments accumulate these funds and they prop up a great many state budgets. It is, ultimately, holding back industry development and a move to a more sustainable economic model. SHINING LIGHTS Musgrove points to Green Industries SA doing a significant amount of work to develop circular economy initiatives and businesses. “They’re working out ways of commercialising waste and resource recovery programs, in partnership with Innovyz. There is a capital fund for circular economy investment aimed at both start-ups and businesses already operating that want to scale up.” Innovyz is a South Australia-based incubator that offers nine-month mentoring programs, aimed at developing consistency, scale and governance in the commercialisation of ideas. Musgrove is involved in the mentoring program, designed to help South Australia build a more resource efficient economy. “South Australians are a tenacious bunch,” he says. “They’ve seen the withdrawal of some large historical industries, but they’re not doing badly at all economically. “New South Wales also has some very good programs, especially in the B2B space. A previous environment minister there, Rob Stokes, was right into this.”
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The value of the sector Research by ACOR and the Waste Management Association of Australia has valued the recycling sector in Australia at $14.2 billion a year. Musgrove says overlaying the international estimates coming out of the EU, and from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to develop a circular model, could achieve a further 30 percent in resource productivity, which would equate to a three percent increase in GDP and two million jobs. “It’s grossly inefficient to waste valuable useable resources and throw them into landfill. It’s madness. Linear economic models mean huge costs, lost resources and negative externalities. If you were starting with a blank piece of paper, it’s not how you’d design an economy. “We need to address this to ensure Australia’s economic future and success for our businesses. We’re slowly falling down international indexes, economic growth is tepid and while some states, particularly in the south-east corner of the country, are trying to do some good things, we need a national economic development strategy.”
Musgrove says governments need to recognise positive externalities of recycling as well as other elements. “Under the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) landfi llers have secured huge amounts of government money for capturing gases. They shouldn’t be receiving money for not spewing methane into the atmosphere – that should be the law. Instead, governments have chosen to pay landfi llers rather than use the ERF for recycling.”
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FORCING OUR HAND Musgrove says ultimately ideology is at play in Australia.“Is there a likelihood of getting bipartisan political support to achieve the right policy settings?” he asks. “Well, we’re not seeing much bipartisanship going on in Australia at the moment. The nature of our federation is problematic and partisan politics come to the fore. That makes coordinated efforts across the country quite difficult. “And that means we take baby steps, ticking off one thing at a time, rather than formulate an economic development strategy that is sustainable. Until there’s a crisis, I’m not sure we’ll see anything different. “The shambolic energy debate at the moment is testament to that. Something as fundamental as where we’re going to get our electricity from has been studiously ignored by governments until there was a crisis – and even though the Finkel Review [into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market] has provided a perfectly logical and sensible approach, political parties are continuing to trip over themselves. “We shouldn’t need to have a crisis before we have a plan. We do have vast virgin resources, but there are huge negative externalities in digging those up, transporting them, remediation of mining sites. There are already ghost towns being left behind and that’s unsustainable from any point of view – governmental, economic, environmental and social. “My fear is that it might take a nasty recession and a macro-economic event for governments to act to diversify our economy – and their own revenue base.” ■
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Opinion
The extraordinary success of Cartridges 4 Planet Ark provides a great illustration for other industries grappling with product stewardship, as RYAN COLLINS writes.
Making history, not waste
O
ver the last year Australians have made history by recycling a record 13,500 used printer cartridges every working day, making it the biggest year ever since the launch of the ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’ program 14 years ago. In total, over 3.5 million cartridges were returned for recycling or remanufacture, which is equivalent to 386 bathtubs of cartridges returned every working day, or six backyard swimming pools every week!
KEY TO SUCCESS The commitment demonstrated by the program’s partners is the key to its success. Collaboration has enabled an extensive collection network and processing infrastructure to be built, making it easy for households and workplaces to recycle their cartridges, which is clearly reflected in the program’s achievements. The participating cartridge manufacturers Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Konica Minolta and Kyocera are taking responsibility for the cartridges they produce. Collectively, they have helped Australians divert over 34 million cartridges from landfill, which is equivalent to over 14,500 tonnes of materials, since the product stewardship program began in 2003.
PRODUCT INNOVATION Innovation is critical in a circular economy and it’s an area in which program resource recovery partner, Close the Loop, is a leader. Established in Australia, it also operates in the US, Canada, New Zealand and now Europe, making it the world’s largest resource recovery company for printer cartridges and imaging consumables. In 2016, it was inducted into the Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame, with its commitment to ‘zero waste to landfill’ and innovation no doubt key factors.
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Comment
Cartridge manufacturers are implementing a range of innovative changes to their cartridges and equipment to reduce waste. These include using recycled plastic in their production, adding extra-large print tanks to extend their life and developing technology to monitor and balance usage across all colours.
Honour roll To recycle as many cartridges as the program did means lots of workplaces are doing the right thing. In 2016, more businesses than ever registered for a free ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’ collection box. The top 10 workplaces for the last year, including the total number of cartridges collected, were: ■ 45,616 – Aspitech A great example of Close the Loop’s innovative approach is the recent launch of a new product, Tonerseal, a world-first spray seal binder for roads, which contains over 20 percent recycled waste toner and used tyre rubber. Just one kilometre of Tonerseal uses 6400 cartridges and 145 tyres. To date approximately 900 kilometres of Australian roads have been surfaced with Tonerseal or TonerPave (a lowcarbon, high-performance asphalt made with recycled toner), which is longer than driving from Melbourne to Sydney. Recently Australia Zoo also chose to lay 250 tonnes of TonerPave as part of a commitment to reduce its carbon footprint. In addition, cartridges are recycled into pens (which can then be recycled via ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’), rulers and eWood garden beds, sleepers and planks. Cartridge manufacturers are also implementing a range of other innovative changes to their cartridges and equipment to reduce waste. These include using recycled plastic in their production, adding extra-large print tanks to extend their life and developing technology to monitor and balance usage across all colours. Changes to toner chemistry also allow for quality printing with lower energy use. More
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■ 17,990 – Endeavour Foundation
(Southport) ■ 11,547 – Brother International ■ 10,045 – Endeavour Foundation
(Redcliffe)
and more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are designing products with the end of life in mind.
THE INTERNATIONAL STATE OF PLAY In many other countries, such as the US, cartridge manufacturers have their own take-back schemes that will accept the cartridges that they manufactured. There are post-back as well as retail drop-off recycling programs. In the UK, there are several schemes, including some where you pay for the collection. However, there is no product stewardship collaboration like ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’ – a single program that allows for a simple message of how to easily recycle your printer cartridges for free.
■ 9873 – Launceston City Mission ■ 7173 – Endeavour Foundation (Garbutt) ■ 5417 – Green Collect ■ 5297 – Cartridge Works ■ 4819 – Substation33 ■ 4612 – The Printer & Office Wizards
Local councils are increasingly providing public collection points for their residents as well as recycling their own cartridges. The top 10 councils nationwide were: ■ 8627 – Hornsby Shire Council, NSW ■ 4716 – Mindarie Regional Council, WA ■ 3299 – City of Monash, Vic ■ 2055 – Randwick City Council, NSW ■ 1959 – City of Tea Tree Gully, SA ■ 1796 – City of Yarra Depot, Vic ■ 1384 – City of Vincent, WA ■ 1311 – City of South Perth, WA ■ 1271 – Cessnock City Council, NSW ■ 1168 – Logan City Council, Qld
IS CARTRIDGE WASTE RECYCLING FOR YOU? Any business or workplace that uses more than three printer cartridges a month may be eligible for a free collection box. That includes offices, factories, schools, libraries, hotels, hospitals and more. Consumers can access a free network of 4000 ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’ public recycling collection boxes around the country, located at all Officeworks stores and participating Australia Post, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys and Office National outlets. To register for a free box or to find your nearest retail drop-off location, visit www.cartridges.planetark.org. Our plans now are for an even bigger year of cartridge recycling with the overall recycling target of 37 million cartridges by March 2018, giving new life and value to what would otherwise be a waste. ■ Ryan Collins is recycling programs manager for Planet Ark.
ISSUE 7 | 2017 CWS | 45
3/07/17 2:37 PM
Opinion
The need to make evidence-based decisions has driven a requirement for the best possible data on waste, as STAN KRPAN writes.
It’s in the numbers
W
aste. Data. It isn’t something we think about on a daily basis, but access to accurate waste and resource recovery data is essential when it comes to sustainability. It enables us to explore and interpret issues, establish goals and measure the progress and effectiveness of our work. Effective waste strategy planning for integrated waste management is centred on high-quality, reliable data. In 2013, Sustainability Victoria (SV) saw the need to improve the quality and sharingability of waste data among the Victorian Government waste and resource recovery agencies, local government and industry to inform decision-making for statewide waste management strategy and planning. More timely data also allows us to better target our strategies, interventions and funding priorities. Traditional data was collected for reporting and to measure past performance. We knew that we needed to improve data quality and accessibility, and remove the chance of any errors to build a case for evidence-based decisions and to drive innovation and investment in the sector. To address this, SV launched the Waste Data Service this year to strengthen existing waste and resource recovery data in Victoria, and improve the collection and sharing of data between local and state government, business and industry. An Australian-first, the data service provides interactive mapping to help identify where Victoria’s waste streams are being generated and to assist all Victorian councils in calculating, monitoring and comparing their kerbside waste, through a number of dashboards. Part of the service allows people to search kerbside waste and recycling
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services by local government areas and then track and project waste flows over the next 10 years. Investors can navigate through critical waste and resource recovery data at both regional and metropolitan levels to inform the scale and location of their infrastructure investment. Potential investors in new services and resource recovery businesses have found the waste service informative and intuitive to
use, allowing them to identify investment opportunities, including new technologies. There are great opportunities for investment in Victoria’s waste and resource recovery sector. Our state generates a quarter of Australia’s waste and this is expected to grow over the next 30 years. SV’s Investment team estimates there will be up to $5 billion in potential investment opportunities for infrastructure by 2044.
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Opinion
An Australian-first, the data service provides interactive mapping to help identify where Victoria’s waste streams are being generated and to assist all Victorian councils in calculating, monitoring and comparing their kerbside waste.
Increasingly, we are seeing interest from interstate and overseas entrants. The interest in new technologies as well as energy from waste – particularly from large energy-intensive manufacturers seeking to offset energy prices – is something we are watching closely. The data service is an essential element to achieving the goals of the 30-year Statewide Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan (state waste plan) –
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another Australian-first, designed to guide planning in this area and ensure our state has the right infrastructure to manage the mix and volumes of waste in the future based on reliable evidence. The diagram below outlines the priority initiatives to achieve the state waste plan and the data service is essential to all of these. With the information collected through the data service, SV has released a number
of publications to help stakeholders make better decisions with their waste management planning. Some of these have included the Victorian Recycling Industry Annual Report, the Victorian Local Government Waste Services Report, and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Kerbside Recycling in Victoria Report and Calculator. SV and RMIT University developed the LCA kerbside recycling calculator for local government, businesses and households to measure the environmental benefits of recycling based on greenhouse gases, energy and water savings. In addition to quantifying the impacts of the recycling system, this interactive tool also identifies barriers within recycling supply chains and environmental impacts of transport, and better informs the establishment of waste metrics. We expect that the study will be used to inform waste policy in the future and will be useful for waste planning authorities, local government and the reprocessing industry. In 2014, SV engaged with local government, business and industry to identify any gaps and opportunities within the recycling and litter data collected to discuss ways to improve waste data management. Based on key findings and recommendations, an agreement was reached that committed each Victorian Government waste and resource recovery agency to strengthen the collection, storage and sharing of waste and resource recovery data by developing a robust governance framework. Over the next five years, we intend to evaluate the benefits of data collected through the data service, specifically monitoring any increases in targeted investment and diversion rates from landfill, and resources spent on collecting data through surveys by local government officers. ■ Stan Krpan is the chief executive of Sustainability Victoria.
ISSUE 7 | 2017 CWS | 47
3/07/17 2:04 PM
Feature: Resource efficiency
We need to talk about e-waste PonyUp for Good co-founder MARDI BROWN launches a new interview series aimed at keeping the conversation going on resource recovery and waste.
W
e would be lying if we said we’d not wished we could close our eyes at times at the thought of the absurd levels of tech wastage directed into landfi ll here in Australia – over 20 million tonnes every year. It would be enough to make my grandma turn in her grave; the dearest lady in the world who used to rinse off tin foil, pop a tea towel over it and iron it flat again, for use on another dish, for another day. But that mindset has changed. Somewhere along the way things blew out and we ‘produced’ quicker than we could ‘protect’. At PonyUp, we’re so enthused to be working with some of the smartest minds in sustainability, technology and product stewardship, who are doubling down on their efforts to help us make up time – crafting innovative, elegant solutions and laws around how we responsibly treat our retired tech into the future. It’s sometimes easy for us to become lax, once we’ve been distracted by the newest, shiniest thing or
by device upgrades, which give our business the next uber level of IT grunt. We decided that we needed to keep the conversation going and launched an inaugural interview series, ‘Straight from the horse’s mouth’, that aims to shed light on the education and behavioural change that’s needed to bring further focus on the responsible management of decommissioned technology and e-waste. PonyUp recognises the importance of this phase in any business’ strategy for the adoption of new practices. We sought out a diverse group of individuals to interview, who are fi rmly focused on enacting or legislating change in the environmental and sustainability sector, to share their views and guidance on the strategies required by big business, to bring about significant, consistent and meaningful change. With a ban on e-waste to landfi ll already in place in South Australia, and Victoria likely to follow suit with a plan to be announced next year, we decided to kick off our series with Stan Krpan, chief executive of Sustainability Victoria (SV), which will play a vital role
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© aimage
“One of the misconceptions of sustainability is that either consumers don’t care, or it costs too much. Our social research and experience dispels this.” – Stan Krpan, Sustainability Victoria
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3/07/17 2:26 PM
Feature
in facilitating this transition and developing initiatives to drive behavioural change across business and the community. Indeed, PonyUp will be using the SV plan to assist our clients in navigating through this new legislation and change. It’s a plan companies can hang their ‘environmental impact hat’ on. It’s a long game to tackle a significant environmental issue, but I think we’ll be doing Grandma proud. PonyUp for Good: SV’s 2015-20 priorities are well underway. If we jump ahead to 2025, what is your vision for how behaviour has changed among businesses in Victoria? Stan Krpan: In the next five to 10 years, we want to influence and support more Victorian businesses in their decision-making to use resources more sustainably and to take practical action on climate change. We know that 73 percent of consumers say they are interested in buying goods and services from businesses that are sustainable and taking their own actions on climate change. This huge latent demand is currently unmet – but is full of opportunities. I look forward to new businesses, new business models and innovative products and services, which are going to meet this demand. That will take some vision and courage, but we know Victorians are entrepreneurial and we have some very innovative businesses. Businesses will also be very conscious of the benefits of being more productive and efficient with resources like energy and materials. It is clear from all of the planning and feedback from industry in the development of SV’s 2015-20 priorities, that we can do more to increase recovery rates, particularly in the commercial and industrial waste streams. This includes new technologies and innovations, which will increase processing capacity and reduce contamination. We are seeing strong interest in new investment by existing companies as well as new entrants, many whom are looking for new opportunities. This approach shifts the thinking from end-of-life concepts towards practices that are ‘restorative’ and support materials and components being reused or recycled many times over. What have been some of the unexpected hurdles in delivering on these priorities to date? Each year presents new challenges. As Victoria’s population grows, so too does the waste we produce and so it is vital that we remain one step ahead and continue to plan for the future. Projections show that our population could rise from 5.8 million to 8.9 million by 2043 and, based on current trends, we’re likely to see total waste generation almost double from 12 million tonnes (2011-12) to 20 million tonnes per year by 2043. Victoria already has a long-term plan – the 30-year
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“The complexity of this area, means the lead times on market development, new infrastructure or innovation can be long.” – Stan Krpan, Sustainability Victoria
Statewide Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan – to guide future planning for waste and resource recovery infrastructure for our state and ensure valuable materials are recovered from waste streams. The complexity of this area, means the leadtimes on market development, new infrastructure or innovation can be long. Although SV and the Victorian Government are already working on a range of initiatives in this space, we need the continued support of industry, local government and businesses to drive growth and provide confidence in markets for recovered resources in order to create investment in new technologies, products and jobs for Victoria. Industry, local government and peak bodies have been very generous with their advice and support to SV (and the State Government) in the development of policies and programs in recent years. I am looking forward to continuing this with a real focus on implementation and improved outcomes. Ultimately, we all want the same things – a better environment. This is assisted by a strong, robust and innovative sector. One of the misconceptions of sustainability is that either consumers don’t care, or it costs too much. Our social research and experience dispels this. Often the sustainable alternative might be more difficult, but taking the long view reveals that it costs less. There are also risks and costs in maintaining the status quo, and consumers and the community are expecting a lot more leadership now from businesses. Reciprocally, what have been some of the unexpected benefits? It has been encouraging to see how strongly Victorians support sustainable efforts and are taking action in using their resources more wisely. Our TAKE2 climate change pledge program has attracted great interest from businesses, local communities, individuals and local government. To date, over 4830 Victorians have pledged to take action against climate change, with 330 businesses getting involved. These TAKE2 businesses employ more than 267,000 people across Australia and have more than nine million customers. We have seen some great partnerships from unlikely partners such as businesses and community groups formed through the program and our events. I am looking forward to seeing that sort of cross-sectoral collaboration continue to grow and the initiatives it might spark.
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Feature
In 2016 the Victorian Government announced its plan to ban e-waste from landfill in Victoria. How do you anticipate Victorian businesses will be impacted? Sustainability Victoria has a key role to play in facilitating this transition and developing initiatives to drive behavioural change across the community. SV is working with community groups, industry and government to develop education programs, which improve resource recovery and support correct disposal of waste. We will particularly highlight the risks of e-waste in landfi ll, the valuable and often rare resources that it contains, which can be recovered, and the ways of disposing of this material so that it is properly recycled. The Department of Environment, Land and Water Planning (DELWP) will lead on the regulatory aspects of Victoria’s approach to an e-waste ban. In alignment with the EPA’s hierarchy to Avoid > Reduce > Reuse – before Recycling – what do you feel will be the greatest motivators for businesses in getting behind the ‘reuse of devices/technology’? Every organisation and business is different in terms of what drives and motivates them. However, in general, fi nancial and environmental factors often come into play. By donating their unwanted or outdated hardware for reuse, businesses can help to keep these electronics out of landfi ll. Where organisations, such as PonyUp for
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Good, can offer secure data destruction with a social impact, this may drive people to do the right thing and donate their unwanted devices to be reused rather than just sending them to landfi ll. What motivates you the most, personally, about SV2020 to do what you do each day? I feel a great sense of responsibility to do as much as I can every day to preserve our environment for future generations. I believe that in order to maintain our way of life, businesses will need to transform and adopt new business models, which will create the jobs of the future. They will design the new products and services, which will be better for the environment and for our own health. I know that deep down people care – for the environment, for each other and for the future. Our job is to show them they can do something, to make that something easier and more attractive and better for us than the status quo. To do this, we want to reach and impact as many people as possible. We know that the transition to a low carbon future will require the community to be engaged and mobilised and I really love that aspect of our work. In the transition some vulnerable parts of our community will be disproportionately affected and I am motivated to support them in our work and in that transition. ■ Mardi Brown is a co-founder of PonyUp for Good.
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Feature: Waste management
The organics opportunity It’s time to look at the considerable benefits available from managing FOGO better, as VIRGINIA BRUNTON reports.
A
ustralia has a significant and growing challenge in how it manages its waste. Tonnages continue to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 6.2 percent, six times faster than population growth, and 2.5 times faster than GDP growth. Landfi ll costs are increasing due to landfi ll levies and landfi ll scarcity. While we are doing well at diverting waste from landfi ll (the latest national data puts diversion at 58 percent), we need to do better. In particular, we need to target waste streams that are high volume and less expensive to address. As Figure 1 shows, one of the greatest opportunities is organics. Organics make up 53 percent of the typical residual waste bin (by weight) and
these are predominately food organics. This is the obvious waste to address, and the area of greatest benefit.
WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS? Transferring the residual organics into the GO (garden organics) service creates a service known as FOGO (food organics – garden organics). For most councils that already have a GO service, this is a straightforward step in terms of service delivery. The alternative is to introduce Alternative Waste Treatment (AWT) of the residual waste bin with separation and composting of the organics component. Both work, and are appropriate for different situations. FOGO service consistently produces a higher value organic product, but it has been generally overlooked in favour of AWT, despite the
cost savings for source separated FOGO processing over landfill. Figure 2 shows the price differential for New South Wales and elsewhere in Australia. AWT is typically more expensive than landfill and FOGO, even with in-vessel processing, is cheaper. FOGO can deliver considerable fi nancial benefits. For an average Sydney Council collecting and landfi lling 30,000 tonnes of waste per year, the savings in removing even a conservative 50 percent of the food organics can be up to $2 million every year. For a tunnel composting facility in regional NSW composting 15,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of FOGO, growing at 2.5 percent per annum and with a facility lifespan of 30 years, the internal rate of return (IRR) is 23 percent and the payback period is seven years.
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Feature CONCERNS WITH FOGO While it seems apparent that FOGO services have economic benefits, the actual implementation of FOGO collection has been slow, particularly in metropolitan areas. A recent workshop in collaboration with the Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) found that waste managers consider FOGO collections to be too problematic to warrant even the often substantial savings. Their concerns can be broadly classified into four categories: ■ the community is not interested ■ it is difficult for multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) ■ the contamination rates are too high, and ■ there are no processors capable of accepting FOGO. Each of these concerns can be addressed.
When councils conduct satisfaction surveys of their community, they fi nd that people are not demanding FOGO. Furthermore, when people are asked about changing their waste collection services, the response is typically negative. As a result, FOGO is seen as a change that the community will not accept. FOGO is, however, widely accepted outside the city. Rural communities are adopting FOGO services far more than metropolitan ones, even in locations where the costs of landfi ll disposal provide some, but not significant, savings. FOGO is popular in rural Australia, and certainly rural NSW. Figure 2 and Figure 3 show this in stark terms. There are clearly additional motivations in these rural and regional areas. Of the 35 councils with a FOGO service in NSW in 2014/15, 34 are outside the Sydney Metropolitan Area, of which 13 outside the levy paying areas entirely. Sydney defaults to a garden organics service. The disparity between rural and metropolitan communities suggests that this could be approached better. Communities need to be engaged with change. They need to see why it is necessary, how much waste can be diverted, how much money saved and how those savings will benefit the community. If rural communities can be engaged on this, urban communities can too. Penrith and Adelaide have shown this is achievable.
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43964_52-55_F FOGO.indd 53
PlĂsƟĐ bĂgs
,ŝŐŚůLJ ĸĐŝĞŶƚ
BuƩs
Cost per tonne ($)
DŽĚĞƌĂƚĞůLJ ĸĐŝĞŶƚ >ĞƐƐ ĸĐŝĞŶƚ
CDs
RĞƚuƌŶĞd food
E wĂsƚĞ
GlĂss HDPE
MĞƚĂls
OƌgĂŶiĐs - Food, 'ĂƌĚĞŶ, MĂŶuƌĞ
BĂƩĞƌiĞs
CoŶĐƌĞƚĞ
PET
Eĸcient
TĞxƟlĞs
MĂƩƌĞssĞs
Wood
Fluoƌo ƚubĞs
Ineĸcient
CĂƌdboĂƌd
Figure 2: Comparison of landfill cost and FOGO gate fee
Comparison of landfill v. AWT v. FOGO gate fee costs ($/tonne) $350
$300
$250
$/tonne
The community is not interested
© aimage
Figure 1: Economics of waste
$200
$150
$100
$50
$Vic
Tas
WA
Qld
Regional NSW 1
Landfill Cost ($/tonne)
INTERSTATE
FOGO implementation is even patchier across Australia, with substantial potential to grow. Figure 5 shows where FOGO services are currently being offered in Australia.
FOGO won’t work for multi-unit dwellings MUDs are difficult, though not impossible. There are many logistical and social reasons why this is so, including building design, storage capacity, socioeconomic barriers and
Regional NSW 2
Regional NSW 3
FOGO Processing Cost ($/tonne)
INTERSTATE
Metro NSW 1
Metro NSW 2
Metro NSW 3
AWT
NSW METRO
turnover. Well-researched and supported community education can reduce some of these, and bin design and service arrangements can overcome others. In NSW and other regions, resources and funding opportunities are available to assist councils in meeting these challenges. There is little justification to withhold a FOGO service from all households. While the number of MUDs is increasing in all metropolitan councils, particularly in Sydney, there is ample opportunity to
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Feature introduce a FOGO service for households. Even limited to households, a FOGO service can make a substantial difference. The City of Penrith, for instance, doesn’t offer a FOGO service to MUDs, but does for all other residents. Instead, MUDs in Penrith have their residuals processed through AWT, a pragmatic approach to optimise organics recovery.
FOGO contamination rates are too high Contrary to common belief, FOGO services around Australia typically perform better than kerbside recycling services. Where kerbside recycling has contamination around eight percent, FOGO services typically have contamination rates well below five percent. A survey of FOGO service providers showed that typical levels of contamination levels were manageably low. The results are in Table 1. This shows that FOGO contamination is low, particularly where the community receives a well-structured and informed education campaign. Processors themselves observe that, once the community has a good understanding of what they are being asked to do and why, contamination is not really an issue.
There are no processors capable of accepting FOGO The fi nal objection comes from the perception that processors cannot accept food in the garden organics bins. That may have been the case historically, but is no longer. In Sydney, there is a 50,000-tonne per annum excess in processing capacity. Facilities have been approved, built and are waiting for the FOGO tonnes to come. It is a similar story in other cities. There is no shortage of capacity, but the concern persists because of the perception that there is no market for recycled organics as compost. The fact is that Australian agricultural soils are increasingly deficient in nutrients and organic carbon. These soils can absorb any amount of compost. The compost produced from processing all available organics across Australia would cover less than 0.5 percent of the compost needs in Australian agriculture. Field trials demonstrate time and time again that the net result of compost in agriculture is significantly improved
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Figure 3: Organics Bin Service – NSW
TWEED KYOGLE
BYRON
LISMORE BALLINA
TENTERFIELD
RICHMOND VALLEY
MOREE PLAINS INVERELL GWYDIR BREWARRINA
GLEN INNES SEVERN
WALGETT
BOURKE
CLARENCE VALLEY
GUYRA COFFS HARBOUR
NARRABRI URALLA
NAMBUCCA
COONAMBLE
TAMWORTH REGIONAL GUNNEDAH
KEMPSEY WALCHA
WARREN BOGAN
GILGANDRA
HASTINGS
WARRUMBUNGLES LIVERPOOL PLAINS
COBAR
CENTRAL DARLING
GREATER TAREE GLOUCESTER
UPPER HUNTER
BROKEN HILL NARROMINE
DUBBO MUSWELLBROOK WELLINGTON MID-WESTERN REGIONAL SINGLETON
LACHLAN
DUNGOG GREAT LAKES
MAITLAND PORT STEPHENS
PARKES
CESSNOCK
ORANGE
BATHURST REGIONAL
WYONG HAWKESBURY GOSFORD
BLUE MOUNTAINS
COWRA
WEDDIN
BLAND
OBERON
SYDNEY (MIXED-SEE DETAIL)
BOOROWA
TEMORA
SHELLHARBOUR
HARDEN
KIAMA
GUNDAGAI JERILDERIE URANA
WOLLONGONG UPPER LACHLAN WINGECARRIBEE
COOTAMUNDRA
LEETON
COOLAMON MURRUMBIDGEE NARRANDERA JUNEE
CONARGO
WOLLONDILLY
YOUNG
GRIFFITH
HAY
YASS VALLEY
GREATER QUEANBEYAN
TUMUT MURRAY
EASTERN CAPITAL CITY
BERRIGAN COROWA
GREATER HUME EUROBODALLA
TUMBARUMBA CAMPASPE (VIC)
GREATER ARGYLE SHOALHAVEN
WAGGA WAGGA LOCKHART
DENILIQUIN
Food and Garden Organics
LITHGOW
BLAYNEY
CARRATHOOL
BALRANALD
WAKOOL
NEWCASTLE LAKE MACQUARIE
CABONNE FORBES WENTWORTH
BELLINGEN
ARMIDALE DUMARESQ
UNINCORPORATED
ALBURY
COOMA-MONARO
SNOWY RIVER
Garden Organics
BEGA VALLEY
Not Source Separated - Organics Processing
BOMBALA
No Organics Bin Service
Figure 4: Organics Bin Service – Sydney Councils
Food and Garden Organics Trialling of FOGO Garden Organics Not Source Separated Organics Processing GOSFORD HAWKESBURY
HORNSBY PITTWATER
BAULKHAM HILLS
BLUE MOUNTAINS
BLACKTOWN
WARRINGAH KU-RING-GAI RYDE WILLOUGHBY PARRAMATTA MANLY HOLROYD
PENRITH
FAIRFIELD LIVERPOOL
CAMDEN
CAMPBELLTOWN
BANKSTOWN CANTERBURY ROCKDALE HURSTVILLE KOGARAH
WAVERLEY RANDWICK
SUTHERLAND
WOLLONDILLY
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Feature Figure 5: FOGO service – Australia
These are all lessons that need to be learned, not reasons why FOGO shouldn’t be implemented.
FOGO REPRESENTS LOW HANGING FRUIT FOR MANY COUNCILS QLD 1 FOGO
IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL
WA 4 METRO FOGO SOUTHERN METROPOLITAN REGIONAL COUNCIL
SA 12 METRO FOGO
CITY OF MELVILLE CITY OF BUNBURY METRO ADELAIDE
Food and Garden Organics
NSW NORTHERN RIVERS 26 FOGO NORTHERN INLAND ORANA CENTRAL WEST RIVERINA VIC 38 FOGO
SOUTHERN INLAND
METRO MELBOURNE
No Organics Bin Service
Table 1 Typical physical contamination rates in FOGO Council
Percent physical contamination
Penrith
4.7%
Parkes, Forbes, Bathurst
1%
Metro Adelaide
5% on a good day 10% on a bad day
Regional SA + commercial FO
<1%
Lismore
1%
Ballina
1%
Byron Shire
2%
Richmond Valley
3%
Grafton
1%
Orange
1%
Greater Shepparton
5.7%
Moira Shire
0.5%
Benalla Rural City
2.1%
Strathbogie Shire
7.8%
Wangaratta Rural City
1.3%
Albury
1-3%
Wodonga
2%
Corowa
0.7%
Indigo
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yields and sustained soil health. Farmers, realising the benefits of compost, are buying it as a regular farming input, just like fertilisers. Contrary to perceptions of limited markets for recycled organics as compost, the market is close to infi nite.
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THE PENRITH EXPERIENCE IS A SIGNIFICANT FACTOR A fi nal factor for Sydney councils to overcome is the ‘Penrith experience’. A situation where FOGO has been historically perceived to have failed, and this being well broadcast while the considerable successes are disregarded. The successes at Penrith include Council achieving greater than 60 percent diversion from landfi ll as early as 2010/11. That is a significant achievement. Equally, contamination rates in Penrith FOGO bins are now around 4.7 percent, significantly less than the typical recycling bin contamination rate of eight percent. The Penrith Council is saving millions of dollars in waste disposal costs every year. To get to this point was not easy, and contamination was high in the initial years. Penrith learned a lot of lessons and these can be used by other councils: Be gradual with the introduction. Introduce food organics into the garden organics bin as a weekly service, but maintain bin size and collection frequency of the residual bin. Only when the new FOGO service settles down should the residual bin be dropped to a fortnightly service. Offer alternatives for residents with different needs and capacities. Introduce education before, during and after. Have ongoing incentives and disincentives to encourage correct sorting and bin selection.
The economics and experience across Australia support the fact that FOGO works. It makes particular economic sense where a garden organics service is currently in place, and where landfi ll levies are high. In this case, FOGO immediately saves money and further reduces waste greenhouse gas emissions. It is acknowledged that every council is different; however, overall there are considerable benefits to be realised. The transition to FOGO can be tailor-made to suit each and every situation. Different bin combinations and timings, rewards and penalties, as well as contracting arrangements will all lead to the right service for residential mix and needs of individual councils. Implemented carefully, FOGO saves money and increases diversion. It gives councils time to consider more challenging decisions around enhanced waste processing technology and instead maximises the use of demonstrated solutions that are current in the marketplace.
THE WAY FORWARD In considering how to address the growth in waste to landfi ll, councils need to consider organics closely. MRA Consulting can help councils decide if separate FOGO collections should be introduced, or whether AWT processing of the residual bin is the best path. We can test the business case, analyse and design FOGO implementation for individual council circumstances. If a FOGO service is the preferred option, MRA can support internal communications and policy discussions to obtain the best practical and economic pathway to implementation. We can support the development and implementation of community education. Ultimately, MRA is confident that a thorough consideration of FOGO can maximise waste diversion and thus financial savings, and enable councils to invest in the future of their communities. ■ Virginia Brunton is a principal consultant (organics) at MRA Consulting.
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Feature: Circular economy
The bottom line is circular A six-month pilot is underway in Maroochydore, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, aimed at demonstrating the social, environmental and financial value of embracing a circular economy model. MICHELLE DUNNER reports.
T
he sight of empty shops on Maroochydore’s Ocean Street gave sisters Ashleigh and Jaine Morris more than cause to reflect on a wasted opportunity but, rather, what they could do to help turn around the precinct using circular economy principles. Their focus was tackling waste – but not necessarily what the traders and local businesses had to throw away. By promoting a collaborative approach, they believed it was possible to eliminate waste and provide the participating businesses with a fi nancial boost. The Circular Experiment was born. The sisters recently launched a six-month proof of concept business project in the Sunshine Coast town aimed at demonstrating how moving away from a linear economic model could result in significant benefits, among them maximising the use of resources and offering the possibility of scale for individual businesses.
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“We believe that small business is the backbone of the economy – our dad runs a small business. We thought there had to be another way to help them get more value from the resources they have, minimise or eliminate waste and improve their bottom line,” Ashleigh says. “I’d studied a Bachelor of Environmental Health and have a degree in management. I’ve worked in Indonesia, at the forefront of some challenging issues, but it was the TED talk by Dame Ellen MacArthur about when she sailed around the world that really brought things home to me. “She talked about having to make do with fi nite resources – what she had on the boat with her was all she had. We believe the global economy is the same.” Jaine came through a different path. “Out of high school, I studied to be a nurse and moved to Cape York in Far North Queensland, working with a community of around 500 Indigenous people,” she says. “It was a
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Feature
“It’s a conversation we need to continue to have with businesses. Circular Economy is a new term; the words don’t mean anything to small business.” life changing experience because the culture was very foreign to me, but I quickly gained an appreciation for how incredibly resourceful the Aboriginal people are and their connection to country. “I then moved to Sydney and I was struck that, in a city of millions, I felt very alone. There was a lack of connection, a lack of community. When I moved to the Sunshine Coast, we brainstormed the idea of how circular economy principles could increase social value and connection, as well as resource efficiency.” The mix of outlets in Ocean Street presented an attractive mix for the sisters, including cafés and restaurants, retail shops and service businesses. One of their key plans is to foster sharing of assets and releasing their value among the wider business community. “We’re trying to help them change the way they look at their business model – in that any increased value in their region or street results in increased value for them,” says Ashleigh. “It essentially leads to economies of scale. In Ocean Street we’re working to connect [a number of] cafés and bars. They all have different logistics for ordering, for deliveries, for waste management. We’re investigating whether we could implement one ordering system for them all, which could lead to cost savings and reduce emissions.
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“It’s a conversation we need to continue to have with businesses. Circular Economy is a new term; the words don’t mean anything to small business. “Small business owners work very hard; they’re often the owner, manager, chef, bookkeeper etc and trying to get the right conversations with them can be challenging. They have a lot of people knocking on their doors to sell them things and, while we’re looking at helping them save money and implement operational efficiencies, it’s tough for them to fi nd the time or resources to address this.” Key to the sisters’ plan is identifying where the value lies in the concept for each business. “Some businesses see the value in ‘going green’ because it’s an environment that appeals to their customers,” says Ashleigh. But the sisters say they’re aware that, for many other businesses, it’s a matter of the triple bottom line – social, environment and fi nancial. With the sisters working to sign up the Ocean Street businesses (12 at the time of going to print, with more expected), their hope after the six-month trial is to support the Sunshine Coast’s goal to become the most sustainable region in Australia. “That might be at odds with the Queensland attitude to waste and landfi ll generally,” Ashleigh says. “Queensland is not a leader in the management of waste and we need to innovate to show how sustainability can be an advantage for Queensland businesses and the community. It’s important for government, at any level, to have proof of concept. If we can show how local businesses are benefiting and why people are getting behind this, hopefully that can make the government step up in other ways.” Jaine agrees: “We’re seriously proud of our area, but we can’t just depend on the stunning natural environment to make our case for us. That’s not what it means to be sustainable – we need strategies and innovations that will make it stay that way.”
GOALS FOR OCEAN STREET: ■ minimising waste, moving to zero waste ■ reducing water and electricity use in the street ■ developing shared communication platforms between business owners, and ■ creating shared social value. “We’re hoping that, arising from this pilot, we’ll be able to develop a playbook that other places around Australia can learn from and implement,” Ashleigh says. “We have a ‘learn’ tab on our website and we’ll be transparent about our successes and challenges. “It would be incredible if we could help make a difference in regions across Australia and create a scalable circular model that is accessible and affordable for small business.” ■ More information about the pilot can be found at thecircularexperiment.com. www.cwsmagazine.com.au
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© Brent Clues
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Q&A
The benefits of urban greening In the rush to develop urban holdings, green spaces can be easily overlooked. RORY MARTIN explains why Frasers Property decided to embrace the 202020 vision.
CWS: Why did Frasers Property join 202020? RM: It was a bit of a no-brainer. We fundamentally believe that urban green space is key to creating greener, more environmentally sensitive cities and urban spaces, which aligns perfectly with 202020 Vision’s work. This belief is underpinned by our corporate strategy on sustainability – ‘A Different Way’, which commits us to delivering Green Star Communities and Green Star Design and As Built ratings on all our new developments. We see the creation of active and healthy green spaces as being fundamental requirements to achieving these ratings and, therefore, our strategy. This was also an opportunity to demonstrate to the industry and wider community our commitments and leadership in sustainability, as well as the opportunity to connect with like-minded organisations to draw upon their experiences for shared learnings.
What are the business benefits in participating? We’ve seen a number of benefits already. Not only have we been able to benchmark our projects and endeavours, but we have also been able to learn from others and their efforts to increase public green space in Australia. We have been able to look at 202020 Vision’s multitude of resources to use as inspiration and sanity checks for our developments, to see what other projects have done and compare it against our own proposals. We can identify which organisations are strong in particular areas, such as CBD infi ll strategies or new broadacre developments, and use their expertise and the lessons learned from their built works in a more tailored way. The network of professional and organisational experts that 202020 Vision has created has also been very useful. If we have a particular challenge on one
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Image courtesy of Frasers Property and Sekisui House. Photography by Simon Wood
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Q&A Image courtesy of Frasers Property and Sekisui House. Photography by Simon Wood
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The greatest challenge exists in getting an ‘urban greening’ strategy right in the early stages of a new project. It’s a balancing act between managing biodiversity, urban heat island, community health and well-being requirements with the council, surrounding context and governance requirements.
of our projects regarding public greening, then we can readily draw upon this resource to see what individuals and organisations may be able to assist. To reach 202020 Vision’s goals we must realise that we are the sum of our industry; no one organisation has all the answers, and therefore we must partner with the ‘best in industry’ to get there. It’s been impressive to see the increasingly comprehensive suite of tools they’ve created for our industry to grow. Finally, participating with 202020 Vision adds a lot of credibility to our work. It’s not just a case of us creating our message as part of our communications but, rather, it is standing with industry leaders and the peak body on the issue, demonstrating that we are delivering what we’ve committed to. What have the business challenges been so far? To be honest, while there will always be both unique and common challenges on projects, when it comes to urban greening, there is more and more support for not only its inclusion, but also an increased understanding of its value to new communities. For example, a recent Aecom report on Green Infrastructure cited a $50,000 average increase in the value of an average-size property resulting from a 10 percent increase in the tree canopy in certain Sydney suburbs. The greatest challenge exists in getting an ‘urban greening’ strategy right in the early stages of a new project. It’s a balancing act between managing biodiversity, urban heat island, community health and well-being requirements with the council, surrounding context and governance requirements. There’s no silver bullet for urban greening; therefore, it’s an evolving process where we’ll take the successes and learnings from one project and build upon them for the next. What does it mean for stakeholders (both internal and external)? For example, greater employee engagement, being able to further demonstrate a commitment to sustainable practices with clients (and potential clients), good corporate citizenship? Our biggest external stakeholders are our clients, those that will live, work and play in the communities we create. For them, and ultimately us, it is essential we create healthy active communities, fundamental to which are engaging external spaces that promote well-being.
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Throughout our residential communities, we are working to create this through a number of initiatives, including walking and cycling trails and outdoor community events that bring communities together, such as our free health and fitness classes – ‘Live Life, Get Active’. These strategies would be redundant were we not able to provide external green spaces that enable these ‘heart and soul’ community activities. Incidentally, we’ve found these initiatives so successful that we are including some of them in our commercial developments. Internally, we are experiencing and living the benefits of quality green urban spaces. For example, we have just consolidated our Victorian business units into a single tenancy on St Kilda Road. At lunchtime our staff have options, including the classes I mentioned earlier, a five-kilometre walk/run around Albert Park Lake or a choice to just chill under a shady tree and enjoy a chat or book. All of this greatly impacts and improves our team’s overall health and well-being. How much have you been involved in helping educate the community and stakeholders about the need for the 202020 plan? As they say, communication is everything and what we’ve found is that whether it’s internal or external engagement on urban greening, it’s sometimes better to tailor and simplify the communication. For example, elements of the plan have influenced our corporate strategy on sustainability. This is so that development teams have one point of contact for simplification, but we still get the same desired outcomes for urban greening, in line with other sustainability commitments. Similarly, in educating the community, we have found that ‘sustainability’ initiatives can sometimes be overwhelming, over-complex or ambiguous, and hence we’ve been focusing on simplifying the message. Quite simply, we want to create happy, healthy, connected and active communities and one aspect of enabling this is a killer urban greening strategy. If greater elaboration is required, then it’s quite easy for us to take people through our strategy and the 202020 Vision plan. ■ Rory Martin is sustainability manager – Residential at Frasers Property Australia.
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Government round-up NATIONAL Landfill levy revenue can create a circular economy – NWRIC The National Waste and Recycling Industry Council (NWRIC) has called for governments at all levels to use the $1 billion a year landfill levy more effectively, to serve the community and ultimately support improved recycling. NWRIC chair, Phil Richards says the council believes levy revenue should not be collected through private businesses and then used to subsidise government owned waste and recycling businesses. “This practice undermines investor confidence in private enterprises and, over the long-term, will erode private investment into new waste and recycling infrastructure and innovation,” says Richards. NWRIC says levy revenue can be allocated in a way that will help to create a circular economy and be used to support: ■ uniform and comprehensive regulatory enforcement ■ statewide waste management and recycling infrastructure planning ■ creation of viable long-term markets for recycled products, and ■ funding public waste and recycling education programs. Where levy revenue is given out to support infrastructure, the Council believes the revenue should be allocated as loans, in a similar model to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). “Giving out levy revenue as low-interest loans rather than grants will ensure oversight and the effective use of capital,” says Richards. NWRIC chief executive Max Spedding says, despite progress in improving regulatory compliance, too much waste is flowing to substandard or illegal operators and more needs to be done to close down non-compliant activities. “It is essential that high-quality waste and recycling operations, which meet and exceed environmental and safety standards, are protected from competition from non-compliant activities,” says Spedding. “Failure to prosecute substandard or illegal operators harms the reputation and professionalism of the industry, while undermining essential worker and public safety. “Industry would like to see both the EPAs and State Planning Departments align and cooperate, to mutually enforce rules on buffer protections for waste and recycling facilities.” Richards adds: “Effective public engagement to communicate the essential nature of waste and recycling services will benefit all in the industry. The NWRIC has a vision to transition Australia to a circular economy, and we ask for public and government support.”
ACOR calls for national action on used tyres The Australian Council on Recycling (ACOR) says state and federal environment ministers need to develop a national integrated strategy to deal with the country’s tyre stockpiles, saying governments are hamstrung by the “hapless energy debate”. Chief executive Grant Musgrove says individual state governments take different approaches, leading to dumping and stockpiling.
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“Governments need to break the business models of those who collect the tyres and dump them, but charge a ‘recycling fee’,” Musgrove says. “Tyres have a very high calorific value and are an excellent source of energy for cement kilns.” Musgrove says there are other uses for waste tyres, including crumb rubber asphalt for our roads. “Regardless of the end use, a strong market development strategy is required,” he says. “It’s time for Ministers to act collectively before we have a catastrophic tyre fire, beyond the capacity of our water supply and fire agencies to extinguish in any reasonable time. “The current approaches by different jurisdictions would be greatly strengthened by a nationwide framework to ensure obligations and compliance requirements across states and territories.” ACOR says that other OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries have appropriate Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in place. “Voluntary approaches to EPR can be hindered by the failure to progress beyond business as usual, regulatory capture, poor monitoring, free-riding and transaction costs,” Musgrove says. “Only national tyre regulation will be the most suitable regulation option for Australia.”
Low emissions roadmap The Federal Government has welcomed the release of the CSIRO Low Emissions Technology Roadmap. In a joint statement, Minister for the Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg and Arthur Sinodinos, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, said the roadmap reinforces the Government’s ‘technology neutral approach’ to emissions reductions, as well as the focus on energy security and productivity. The roadmap looks at shifts in electricity generation and energy use in buildings, industry and transport out to 2040, identifying a range of possible technology pathways, and a series of actions for consideration by government and industry. The Ministers said the roadmap shows an optimistic view of the opportunities for Australia and that the Government will consider its implications as it responds to the Finkel Review.
HFC phase down gathers momentum Parliament has passed amendments to the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act, paving the way for the phase-down of HFC (hydrofluorocarbons) use, particularly in refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment. The phase-down is a gradual reduction in the maximum about of bulk HFCs permitted to be imported in Australia, through a quota system, and will start in January next year. While noting modern equipment is much more energy efficient, the Department of the Environment and Energy says the pace of the phase-down is designed to match demand and end-of-life equipment replacement. There is no import quota for HFCs in precharged equipment, but there is the potential for future bans on the
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import of equipment. Australia’s moves are as part of the Montreal Protocol, which was agreed in Rwanda in October 2016 with a goal for developed nations to phase down their production and import of HFCs by 85 percent between 2019 and 2036, with other targets for developing countries.
NEW SOUTH WALES Funding allocated for CDS – but industry calls for delay The New South Wales Government has announced a $72 million package to tackle waste and reduce litter by 40 percent by 2020. This is part of a total spend in the state budget on environmental matters of $1.8 billion. The package includes $3.4 million to introduce a Container Deposit Scheme (CDS), which is due to commence on 1 December – delayed from its original start date of 1 July. Indeed, industry body NWRIC believes the scheme should be delayed further, arguing the commencement of the NSW and Queensland CDSs should be aligned. The Queensland scheme is not due to start until 1 July 2018. “By delaying the start date of the NSW CDS by only seven months, both NSW and Queensland can prevent cross border transport of beverage containers and stockpiling issues,” says NWRIC chair Phil Richards. “Industry is asking for more time to establish high-quality collection points and resolve the outstanding administrative issues associated with the scheme. “CDS programs are complex, so it is also important that adequate time is given to network operators to establish collection and administration systems. These systems are needed to reduce disruption and deliver a high-quality service to the public. “Regulators are already working to harmonise the rules of both the NSW and Queensland container deposit schemes, so it seems natural to harmonise their commencement dates.” Along with the NSW and Queensland CDS, the NWRIC is also calling for renewed efforts by each of the states and territories to harmonise all the regulations covering waste management and recycling.
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More funding for organics infrastructure The New South Wales EPA has announced more grant money for its Organics Infrastructure (Large and Small) Program. Eligible businesses, plus local councils, government institutions, not-for-profit organisations and industry groups could be eligible for grants. There are three streams, numbered one, three and four – a $3 million ceiling applies to stream one, while up to $500,000 is available for the other two streams. Stream one covers food and garden organics processing, where entities can apply for funding for new and enhanced infrastructure to process food, garden or combined food and garden organics from households and/or businesses. Stream three concerns food donation. Grants are available to facilitate the collection and redistribution of edible food waste from businesses to people in need through purchase of fridges, freezers, refrigerated vans and storage equipment. Stream four concerns product quality – offering funds for organisations to invest in equipment that will improve the quality of recycled organics products, to support access to new markets. The grants are part of the NSW government’s Waste Less Recycle More Initiative.
QUEENSLAND SUEZ retains Brisbane City Council collection contract SUEZ has retained the contract to provide waste collection services to Brisbane City Council for the next 16 years. The new contract will commence on 1 July 2018 and is valued at approximately $900 million. Mark Venhoek, CEO of SUEZ in Australia and New Zealand, says SUEZ has been and will continue to provide general, recycling and green waste collections to 1.2 million local residents in the greater Brisbane area. “Brisbane City Council’s waste collection operation is the largest in Australia, providing services to households from multi-unit dwellings through to rural properties in the outer suburbs, as well as council parks and street litter bins across the city,” Venhoek says.
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