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Pollution

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James Dorney, chief executive of Tomra Cleanaway, which manages the NSW container return scheme, at a sorting plant at Eastern Creek.

Australian container return schemes are a booming good news story

Unlike efforts to recycle soft plastics, container deposit schemes have been a success across Australia, with billions of bottles recycled.

  • Nick O'Malley and Bianca Hall

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Sally Rewell, manager of the Malabar wastewater treatment plant (right), and Kate Miles, head of system planning and land acquisition at Sydney Water.

The grime balls were a symptom of an ailing sewerage network. The cure could be to drink recycled water

Sydney Water is proposing to add purified recycled drinking water – effluent that has been highly treated back to drinking standard – to Sydney’s tap water supply.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Professor Ian Wright and PhD candidate Katherine Warwick by the Wingecarribee River near Berrima sewage outfall, a known hotspot for platypus.

Revealed: The icky reason behind build-up of forever chemicals in Sydney catchment

NSW has the highest proportion of residents with cancer-causing PFAS chemicals - news which coincides with revelations that wastewater treatment plants are allowed to release treated effluent into rivers and creeks in the Warragamba catchment.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Traditional owner Raelene Cooper with a hand petroglyph on the Burrup Peninsula.

Burrup Peninsula industrial pollution has impacted Murujuga rock art: report

As the nation’s eyes are on the federal minister set to decide whether to allow Woodside’s expansion on the site, a long awaited air pollution report has dropped.

  • Emma Young
EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn Power Station in Victoria.

Greenwashing is rife in Australia, but could its days be numbered?

This week’s admission from a major Australian company could mark a turning point for Australians being misled while trying to do the right thing.

  • Claire Snyder
Mornington Peninsula Beach Box Owners president Peter Clarke at Dromana beach this week.

‘It got pretty foul’: Stink over seaweed ends cleaning peninsula beaches by hand

Mornington Peninsula councillors said locals preferred groomed beaches, without unsightly and smelly seaweed, and voted to bring back mechanical raking over hand-cleaning of the bay’s beaches.

  • Adam Carey
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STOP PFAS convener Jon Dee in Leura.

WaterNSW admits PFAS contamination could date from 1992

The Blue Mountains drinking water contamination with “forever chemicals” occurred between a 1992 truck crash and 2007, when a toxic fire fighting foam was banned.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons
The muddy green waters of a Riverina fish farm counterintuitively produce the purest tasting fish.

Salmon critics say fish farms should be on land. How it works for Murray cod

A sustainable Murray cod farm using freshwater ponds in the Riverina provides a contrast to open-pen salmon farming in the ocean off Tasmania.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Planet Ark championed the Australasian Recycling Label.

Labor commits to national packaging rules as Planet Ark collapses

The environmental charity behind a number of high-profile recycling schemes went into voluntary administration this week.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Mother-of-three Jessica Marsh worries about the effects of truck pollution from the Port of Melbourne.

Melbourne roads to cop tripling of trucks as rail freight plans flounder

Australia’s busiest container port is pumping shipping containers onto Melbourne’s roads. And it’s about to get worse.

  • Adam Carey and Sophie Aubrey

Original URL: https://www.theage.com.au/topic/pollution-60n