Time for SA to turn its trash into treasure

IN LIGHT of the China ban on recyclables, it is time for South Australia to start seeking solutions that will reduce our waste and ensure the stuff we do produce is recycled.

• Shock recycling ban likely to force council rate hikes
• Waste industry seeks government recycling crisis bailout
• Recycling dumped into landfill as councils struggle with China ban
• Government ministers to meet to discuss waste crisis

EVERY week or two, we trudge out to the kerb with our yellow-lidded bin.

Australians recycle about 60 per cent of the total waste we produce, according to the latest national waste report.

But every year, the average Aussie family also produces enough waste to fill a house from floor to ceiling. After the US, we are the largest waste producers per person in the world.

And now the Chinese Government’s decision to effectively ban the importation of all paper and plastics has resulted in commodity prices dropping by as much as 90 per cent, forcing recycling firms to charge councils a fee to process their recycled waste, rather than pay them to accept it.

Most of Adelaide’s councils are affected – and the ratepayer is likely to foot the bill unless the State Government coughs up a rescue package (like many of their interstate counterparts already have).

Some councils have already thrown their hands in the air and given up – indeed, Ipswich Council in Queensland announced it would now send all of its recycling straight to landfill.

On top of this budget bad news, there’s a plastics crisis in our oceans. One million birds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed by plastic waste every year.

A waste sorting centre. Picture: Thomas Samson

This week, British Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to ban plastic straws, drink stirrers, and cotton buds and will commit $87.21 million to develop new ways of tackling plastic waste. She asked Australia to match the ban. Our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has been vague about stepping up and joining the fight. But isn’t it exactly the right time to step up? Couldn’t South Australia turn this rubbish problem into an economic windfall? The time is right to take this trash and turn it into treasure.

Countries like Sweden are leading the way with more than 99 per cent of all household waste recycled. Yep, 99 per cent.

Newspapers are recycled, bottles are melted into new items, plastic containers become raw material; food is composted and becomes soil or bio-gas. Rubbish trucks are often run on recycled electricity or bio-gas. Wasted water is purified.

South Australia does recycle a lot of our own waste right here. But we can do much better.

If we want to be a leader in sustainability and innovation, now is the time to start seeking solutions that will reduce our waste and ensure the stuff we do produce is recycled.

Such an industry would also give us confidence that when we wheel that yellow-lidded bin out to the kerb, we’re also helping the environment, not hurting it.