www.insidewaste.com.au
ISSUE 103 | AUG/SEP 2021
INSIDE 28 Waste-to-energy 34 Paint stewardship 36 Dumping technology
A how-to guide for councils rolling out FOGO bins
Butting in on the cigarette filter debate the tobacco companies themselves – came out showing the amount of harm smoking cigarettes could do to the body. Whether it was damaged lungs, bad circulation, or damage to the heart – the prognosis for what had been a cash cow for a lot of companies wasn’t good. What they needed was something that appeared to mitigate the damage tobacco was doing. Enter the plastic filter. “There is some conjecture as to whether there was any scientific basis behind it initially, or any genuine innovation to create a safer product,” said Noble. “But that was certainly the language that the tobacco companies used – even the name ‘filter’ implies that it reduces harm.” That was the story in the 1950s, around the same time that it was definitively proven that smoking cigarettes caused cancer. Tobacco companies really honed-in on filters as a risk reduction mechanism. But research since then shows they don’t help anyone said Noble. “It’s arguable they may have shifted their cancer type so that people smoking through a filter draw harder and are increasing the risk of a different type of cancer, than if perhaps
they were smoking a harsher cigarette without a filter,” she said. “The plastic filters are really there for a couple of reasons. They are cheaper. To replace that filter with tobacco or an alternative to cellulose acetate would require substantial investment. It’s also thought that smokers prefer a smooth and dry cigarette end, which plastic provides, as opposed to paper or filterless cigarettes that can get soggy.” Which brings us back to the issue of the waste it causes. Noble said you have this polluting product, which is there for no reason other than the tobacco companies don’t really want to get rid of it. She points out there is broad support fortackling this issue. There are not only environmental organisations, community groups and councils saying, “this is a problem, it is revolting, it is causing all kinds of problems, risks and hazards for marine life”, there are also some prominent public health advocates and the tobacco control advocates saying cigarette filters have no benefit, and getting rid of them could potentially reduce the appeal of smoking and smoking rates. (Continued on page 22)
The importance of data Harper’s first point was that councils need to really know their waste streams, in particular the weight, volume and split between food organics/garden organics currently going into kerbside bins. “Having up-to-date FOGO data not only gives you a benchmark against which to report to senior management and elected officials, it’s also the best weapon you have to raise community participation post-launch,” she said. (Continued on page 24)
PP: 100024538
ISSN 1837-5618
EIGHT billion is a huge number. When you’re talking about something like grains of sand, you’d probably find that number in a couple of square metres at Bondi. When you’re talking about the number of cigarette butts that litter Australia on an annual basis, then that becomes a massive issue for the environment. Kate Noble runs WWF-Australia’s No Plastics in Nature program, and she is a fierce advocate of getting cigarette butts out of the environment and into the waste stream. Remember, that figure is just the butts that are littered annually – add up those numbers over a decade and you’re looking at tens of billions in waterways, in streams, the sea, wastewater systems and the land. “They can take anywhere between 10-15 years to break up into smaller pieces,” said Noble. “Despite all the work done by the community groups and councils to clean them up, we still likely have 10s of billions of cigarette butts – with plastics filters – in the environment at any given point in time.” Noble has delved into the history of the plastic filter, first introduced in the 1950s. It was at about this time that research from neutral sources – ie, not
ADDING a bin to the recycling roster at council level can be a daunting task on many levels. Questions posed include – What resources are needed? What size should the bins be? Will the community buy in to the new service? Gwen Harper shares some of the tricks of the trade to help rollouts go smoothly. This is especially timely given the calls for councils to introduce a FOGO service. Speaking at the WMRR webinar series in June, Harper, who is from JustWaste Consulting, provided insights into the project steps and pitfalls of a successful FOGO rollout.
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