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Recycling crisis

October

Solar panels saved from the scrap heap

By 2027 Australia will be generating a million waste panels a year. ElecSome can put them to good use.

  • Christopher Niesche
Bingo under pressure

Bingo slashed to junk under heaving debt burden, cash burn

Woes at Macquarie Asset Management’s troubled waste management business are mounting as the company adds $100 million to an already heavy debt burden.

  • Elouise Fowler

September

Discarded solar panels with shattered glass at a recycling facility in Arizona. Australia has few options for recycling panels.

Warning on the growing solar panel scrap heap

The industry is nearing a tipping point as the nation grapples with unprecedented levels of waste.

  • Nina Hendy

July

How Amcor gave us guilt-free cream cheese

Soft plastics are piling up in warehouses around Australia. Amcor says it has a solution, taking out the Manufacturing category.

  • Sylvia Ramsey
Winning Group brand Appliances Online has stopped 80,000 tonnes of electronics and appliances from being dumped in landfill since it was launched in 2005.

Customers love this cool solution to getting rid of old fridges

Winning Group brand Appliances Online has stopped 80,000 tonnes of electronics and appliances from being dumped in landfill, earning the company top spot in the Retail category.

  • Gus McCubbing
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November 2023

Justine Aldersey-Williams grew the flax and spun the thread to make her own jeans.

Growing my own jeans took three years and cost more than $15,000

A textiles teacher set out to make a pair of zero-emission pants. It was a lot harder than she thought it would be.

  • Fleur Britten

October 2023

The Eurobodalla Repair Café

How these Aussie cafes are keeping laptops out of landfill

Repair cafés are part of a growing culture of re-use, recycle and repair around Australia as garbage levels soar and recycling systems break down.

  • Tom McIlroy

August 2023

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Visy boss Anthony Pratt and federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek at Visy’s Coolaroo plant on Thursday. 

Why this Rich Lister wants to recycle your pizza boxes

Visy boss Anthony Pratt has unveiled upgrades to his Melbourne plants that he says will keep 400 Olympic swimming pools of paper and cardboard out of landfill.

  • Gus McCubbing
Darren O’Brien CEO of Mondelez in his Melbourne office.
09/08/23 Photograph by Louis Trerise.

Cadbury owner’s plan to stop importing waste for chocolate wrappers

The global confectionary giant currently imports recycled plastics to meet its target for 30 per cent recycled packaging as Australia doesn’t have a facility.

  • Ben Potter

February 2023

Mint Innovation will start recycling e-waste next month to produce gold and copper.

This miner just raised $55m to extract gold from old electronics

Mint Innovation will start recycling e-waste next month in Sydney to produce gold and copper. PE fund Liverpool Partners is so impressed it has led a $NZ60m funding round.

  • Yolanda Redrup
The Pact Group is building more recycling plants.

Pact Group inks Woolies recycling deal as net profits rebound

More agreements with retailers are expected as governments and consumers push companies to shift towards recycling products, the Pact CEO said.

  • Jenny Wiggins
It generally takes between 500-1000 years for plastics to break down.

The globe has more single-use plastic waste than ever

The equivalent of almost 1 kilogram in single-use products was produced for every person on the planet in 2021, according to a report by Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation.

  • Tom McIlroy

December 2022

InnovationClub’s Dean Lettfuss, project director, Colin Farrell, director of business development and chief executive Jackson Sobb.

RSL’s $25m green play to make it less reliant on pokies

Campsie RSL will open a new manufacturing plant in Bathurst next year that converts wheat straw into compostable packaging.

  • Tess Bennett
Kimberly-Clark Australia is the market leader in nappies with the Huggies brand. A trial to make compost out of soiled nappies is underway. Peats Soil and Garden Supplies technical assistant engineer, Kun Chang, on the site near Langhorne Creek in South Australia.

Baby steps as nappies giant confronts its biggest problem

The Huggies brand is a star of Kimberly-Clark’s $1 billion Australian unit, and ASX-listed childcare group G8 is on board as part of a trial.

  • Simon Evans

August 2022

Marshall Waters, founder of ReWine. The business proved so viable there are now three more outlets in Melbourne.

New wine in old bottles: Reusing and refilling comes full circle

The practice goes back decades; it’s just that in times of plenty, we forgot how to be sustainable.

  • Max Allen
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May 2022

“Natural” or “organic” skincare ranges come with a catch: refillable options don’t work because of the risk of introducing contaminants into the product.

The beauty industry’s dirty little secret

Cosmetic and skincare brands are major culprits when it comes to sustainability, but some are trying to pivot with new packaging initiatives and innovations.

  • Eugenie Kelly

April 2022

Close the Loop Group CEO Joe Foster is leading an end-to-end recycling and packaging manufacturing company.

How this ASX small cap beat the majors to win a global recycling award

Close the Loop has taken out the top award at the global Packaging Innovation Awards for a soft plastic muesli pouch that can be recycled from the kerbside.

  • Yolanda Redrup

March 2022

Samsara Eco CEO Paul Riley was working as the entrepreneur-in-residence at Main Sequence Ventures when the foundations of infinite recycling start-up Samsara Eco were established.

Recycling start-up scores $6m for enzyme that eats plastic

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Woolworths’ venture capital fund W23 and CSIRO’s Main Sequence Ventures have invested in Samsara Eco’s latest round.

  • Yolanda Redrup
The country’s largest PET recycling plant has opened in Albury. 

Drinks giants team up for major recycling boost

Coca-Cola and Asahi will open Australia’s first PET plastics recycling facility in Albury on Friday.

  • Tom McIlroy

February 2022

Sanjay Dayal CEO PACT

Why this recycling boss would love a new tax

Sanjay Dayal, CEO of listed packaging group Pact, warns about skyrocketing rising costs and price hikes, and discusses workplace cultural clashes between Australia and India: “In Asia, if you’re the boss, you’re the boss.”

  • Patrick Durkin

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/recycling-crisis-1n4t