Opening the lid on waste
Š Stock.Adobe.com/au/aleciccotelli
Blake Lindley, Senior Sustainability Consultant
Recent announcements by the respective environmental agencies of South Australia, Victoria and NSW have all confirmed a continued focused on diversion of waste from landfill in the coming years. Here we take a look at emergent industry and government initiatives changing the landscape of waste disposal by challenging the status quo and delivering improved environmental outcomes.
14 Sustainability Matters - Aug/Sep 2017
H
ave you ever wondered
has a value affected by its collection and
about what happens to a
processing costs. It competes directly (in
milk bottle once you’re
price) against its virgin equivalent. These
finished with it? Well,
economic drivers are in continuous flux,
depending on where you
driven on one end by raw commodity prices
are in the country, the
and on the other by changing demand for
results are going to be very different. A
recyclable materials themselves. Throw
milk bottle disposed of in your local kerbside
into the mix the motivations of each profit-
service may become a piece of blended
seeking enterprise in the process and the
plastic street furniture; in another part of
difficulty of modelling, regulating or mapping
the country, it may become a plastic bag;
downstream waste flows becomes apparent.
and elsewhere it may be sent offshore as
However, in the same way that ecolabels
fuel for energy recovery.
and procurement guidelines have long been
As you can imagine, the environmental
used to drive action in upstream supply
impacts of each of these scenarios are radi-
chains, industry leaders are harnessing col-
cally different. Economics drives recycling,
lective influence to drive increased clarity
and recyclable material, being a commodity,
across waste disposal streams.
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