Colin James: Councils need to put their money where their mouths are if they are serious about recycling
If councils are serious about creating a “circular economy”, then they need to start using more local products made from recycling. Marion could start with rebuilding the Hallett Cove Boardwalk with plastic.
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Mountains of recycled plastic are building up in South Australia, raising the question why we should bother putting empty containers in our yellow bins.
As The Advertiser reported on Monday, the only SA company doing anything to convert items like soft drink bottles, ice cream containers and shampoo dispensers into products we can use has been given a kick in the teeth by losing a contract to replace a wooden boardwalk to an interstate competitor from Victoria.
Family-owned Advanced Plastic Recycling (APR) at Kilburn makes planks, sleepers, posts, bollards and joists from small plastic pellets produced from recycling sent in bales by a waste processing facility operated at Edinburgh by three northern councils, NAWMA, to Recycling Plastics Australia, also located at Kilburn.
The pellets are mixed with sawdust and lubricants before being put through a machine which produces hard plastic which looks like wood or steel but does not rot or rust. APR’s products have been used by interstate councils to make boardwalks and footbridges.
Surprisingly, few South Australian councils have shown similar interest apart from Murray Bridge, Adelaide Hills, Onkaparinga and Port Adelaide-Enfield Council, with the latter using APR’s sleepers to build a 300m-long wall alongside dunes at Semaphore.
Tumby Bay District Council had the opportunity to use the company’s products to upgrade an ageing wooden boardwalk but, on the basis of cost, last week chose instead to give an estimated $220,000 contract to a Melbourne company, which uses recycling collected in Victoria. Tumby Bay’s mayor is Local Government Association president Sam Telfer, who attended a ceremony at the APR factory last September where nine councils signed a memorandum of understanding to start buying more products made from recycling collected in SA.
According to a media statement released last week by the LGA, the pilot program has resulted in 17,000 tonnes of procurements, mostly compost and mulch created from green waste sent to two SA companies, Jeffries and Peats, and, according to industry sources, road aggregate purchased from interstate suppliers. Only four of the councils which signed the memorandum have since placed orders with APR.
The lacklustre support from all levels of government within SA has forced the company to look elsewhere for markets, finding success in supplying sleepers for the upgrading of the wharf at the Whyalla steelworks owned by billionaire businessman Sanjeev Gupta and providing supports to Santos and Beach Energy for their vast pipelines which stretch across Central Australia.
APR chief executive Ryan Lokan told me last week that, without ongoing demand for products like those produced by his company, then the so-called “circular economy” sought by policy makers will struggle to become reality.
“If we don’t use recycling to make things which people use, then the mountains will just keep getting bigger and sit there forever,” he said. “I should be the busiest man in Australia right now but instead we are constantly looking for jobs. When a big one comes along, like Tumby Bay, they give it to an interstate competitor. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Mr Lokan said Tumby Bay’s decision to go with a Victorian company isn’t the first time APR has been overlooked. The company tried to get on a preferred list of suppliers for the $25 million project to replace the Wild Dog Fence but missed out to companies like Bunnings and Elders.
The project he is now eager to secure is the upgrade of the Hallett Cove boardwalk, which has been partially closed because some of its wooden structure has become unsafe. Marion Council and the State Government have allocated $4.88 million to upgrade two sections of the 8km boardwalk which runs between Marino and Hallett Cove, publicly stating they want to use local companies to help stimulate the state’s post-COVID economy.
So here’s an idea. If councils and government departments truly are serious about recycling, how about they put their money where their mouths are and start supporting local companies like APR - even if does cost a bit more.
As another waste industry expert said to me on Monday: “It is not recycling until it is reused.”