www.insidewaste.com.au
ISSUE 107 | APR/MAY 2022
INSIDE 30 36 40
Plastic fruit/veg labels Waste to Energy WIRA Awards
Better outcomes with AI
Recycling, reusing, repurposing waste – who’s responsible? in terms of getting us there. In November, APCO published its Collective Impact Report, which gave a rundown on how close the country was to reaching the packaging targets for design, recovery and recycled content. And there were some worrying gaps. How has the country fared over the past four years? The first target of 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging has yo-yoed between 86-88 per cent between 2017 and 2020, which are the latest figures available. In other words, they’ve hardly moved at all. More worryingly, the 86 per cent figure was from 2020. In other words, heading backwards. The target for the average amount of recycled content being included in packaging is 50 per cent. Figures will show that in 2017 that number was at 35 per cent, by 2019-20 it was
sitting on 39 per cent. Four per cent over four years may not seem much, but the original figure to be met was 30 per cent. It was quickly discovered that this figure was underestimated so was increased. With more companies starting to see the benefit of using recycled materials in their packaging, that target could be attainable. Then comes the problem child. The elephant in the room and the most tricky waste stream of all – plastics. Not necessarily because plastic is ‘bad’ because it has some redeeming qualities (longer shelf life for food for example, which in theory means less food going to landfill), but there is a perception with the public that it is a troublesome packaging material. Currently, the target is set for 70 per cent of plastic packaging being recycled or composted. (Continued on page 22)
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ISSN 1837-5618
PACKAGING is one of the banes of the waste industry – is it recyclable? Is it compostable? Can it be reused? What parts are recyclable and which parts have to be shunted to landfill? Is it biodegradable? Do consumers understand where a soft plastic stops and a hard plastic begins? Do they know that in some cases the lid of a bottle cannot be recycled with the body of a bottle? During the Waste Strategy Summit held in February, one of the panel discussions was titled Driving Australia’s Transition to a Circular Economy. Chaired by Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) CEO Brooke Donnelly, the panel looked at some of the challenges faced by all industries in the packaging environment, with a mind to reach the 2025 National Packaging Targets – which recently hit a snag
DURING the Waste Strategy Summit held in February in Sydney, one of the topics covered was the role of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning in the waste arena. A panel discussed how machine learning and AI would impact on the waste industry and how taking on such an approach would allay some of the upcoming sustainability challenges and targets that need to be met over the next decade. Moderator Blaise Porter, who is the director of corporate sustainability and responsibility at Sims, stated at the outset, that while the issues may be daunting, embracing modern innovations could make the transition easier. “We are going to need every tool in our arsenal to meet these challenges and to really elevate the entire value chain,” she said. “It is not just about our practice or our stakeholders, it is about the entirety of our society and how we interact with each other. Can AI be one of those tools?” Joining Porter on the panel were Ian Hansel, a data scientist and director of Verge Labs, Dr Denise Hardesty, principal research scientist from the CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere department, and Associate Professor Ali Abbas from the University of Sydney’s Waste Transformation Research Hub. For Abbas, it is all about embracing the future and the key to this is one word: data. (Continued on page 26)
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