Lockdown-inspired home clean-ups send more waste to landfill, a parliamentary estimates committee has heard

Covid lockdowns have sent us to clean out the shed, with huge amounts of waste going to landfill – sparking a windfall for the state government.

South Australia has failed to meet an annual landfill-reduction target by a “whopping” 40,000 tonnes – the weight of four Eiffel Towers – and the state government says people tidying up too much is to blame.

Environment Minister David Speirs has told a parliamentary estimates committee that many residents had made the most of their extra time at home during the pandemic by filling up the wheelie bin.

Mr Speirs said more people working from home, and therefore eating at home, was partly behind the increase.

He said many had gone beyond chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier’s advice to tidy their sock drawers during lockdowns and had discarded a whole range of “random goods”.

“People tidied out wardrobes and drawers and garden sheds and things like that,” he said. “So we do believe – and it’s hard to ever get a grasp on exactly the motivations and behaviour-change indicators behind this marginal increase (in landfill) – but we do believe that the pandemic had a fairly direct result on that.”

Opposition environment spokeswoman Susan Close said budget papers revealed that, despite raising the solid waste levy rising by 40 per cent two years ago, the state government had “missed its target of reducing waste to landfill in 2020-21 by a whopping 41,000 tonnes”.

“That’s the equivalent of four Eiffel Towers in weight,” she said.

“The increased tax resulted in a $6.4m increase in government revenue last financial year.

“Now fully implemented, it is expected to produce a windfall of almost $25m a year to government coffers.”

The government’s target was a reduction of 37,000 tonnes, but instead there was an increase in 4000 tonnes of rubbish heading into landfill.

“This disappointing result has been compounded by the target for reduction this year being set at zero,” Ms Close said.

In 2019, Mr Speirs said the landfill levy hike was designed to increase jobs and reduce waste.

“Under questioning today in parliamentary estimates, the minister tried to blame the pandemic but failed to answer what proportion of the surge in landfill could have been diverted,” Ms Close said.

Where our waste goes – the results of an audit by East Waste. Graphic: East Waste

Green Industries SA said council kerbside collection data showed “more waste of all kinds has been presented since Covid-19”.

“This is understood to be around increased time spent at home and increased consumption and purchasing, as well as the time spent on clean-ups and clean-outs with waste being presented for hard rubbish and weekly waste collections since Covid-19,” it said.