NSW residents encouraged to waste less, recycle more

On 23 February, NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker announced the state’s new ‘Waste Less, Recycle More’ Waste Resource and Recovery Initiative - a five-year, $465.7 million plan intended to transform waste and recycling in NSW.

The initiative will be funded by and follows on from the state’s waste and environment levy, which is applied to councils for waste going to landfill at $95 a tonne (Sydney area). It raises about $450 million a year for the government and is said to have helped improve NSW recycling rates from 45% in 2002-03 to 63% in 2010-11.

In January 2012, the levy was the subject of an independent review conducted by KPMG. It found that although the levy made waste recovery a more financially attractive option, more work was needed to encourage recycling, combat illegal dumping and reduce littering. Particular attention was paid to the area of organic products - in 2010-11, around 1.2 million tonnes of food and 1.6 million tonnes of paper, timber and plastic ended up in landfill.

“Half the household garbage bin consists of food waste and garden organics that could be recovered with upgraded and new infrastructure. Over 90% of food waste generated by households in 2010-11 was disposed of to landfill, with only 9% recovered,” states the framework. “A further 23% of the household garbage bin contains materials that could be recycled - including plastics, paper and cardboard.”

The story is even worse for industry, with the paper claiming that “Over 80% of food waste that was generated by business and industry was disposed of to landfill in 2010-11”, along with “about 80% of timber and nearly 95% of plastics”.

Furthermore, while recycling rates have increased, so too has the total amount of waste being generated - from 11.8 million tonnes in 2002-03 to 17.1 million tonnes in 2010-11. There is, therefore, a need to refocus waste levy funding to support new and renovated waste and recycling infrastructure across NSW.

“The review presented 17 key recommendations and provided the NSW Government with a strong evidence base to bring forward a new waste and recycling agenda,” Parker said.

“NSW 2021 sets out strict targets to reduce illegal dumping and littering and the strategy will help us achieve those goals by improving infrastructure, engaging local communities and increasing regulation and compliance activities.”

The $465.7 million package will provide funding over five years in five areas:

1. $250 million for waste and recycling infrastructure, including large-scale infrastructure to sort household and business waste, recycling facility upgrades, drop-off centres, food and garden organics processing, recycling innovation and support for businesses to increase recycling on site.
2. $137.7 million to help councils support their own waste and recycling initiatives for their local communities, plus $85.1 million exclusively for councils as part of a contestable grants process and a further $133.9 million in contestable grants open to councils, industry and not-for-profit organisations.
3. $58 million to combat illegal dumping as part of a statewide illegal dumping strategy.
4. $20 million to tackle litter in communities through education campaigns, infrastructure and increased enforcement.
5. Improving the operation of the waste levy, including a five-year structural adjustment program to assist NSW metal shredders modernise their operations to reduce the amount of waste generated.

The announcement was welcomed by Ron Wainberg, National President of the Waste Management Association of Australia, who said, “The NSW Government is maintaining a financial commitment to continuing improvements in waste management, recycling and the recycling industry, particularly during difficult financial times.”

Grant Musgrove, Director of the Australia Council of Recycling, also welcomed the package, saying it will save jobs in the metal industry, lead to more recycling and maintain investment in NSW.

“We congratulate the government and the minister for securing levy reductions for metal recyclers and maintaining funding for infrastructure and jobs into the future,” Musgrove said.

Jeff Angel, Executive Director of the Total Environment Centre, added his support to the initiative, but claimed that it will require additional elements to stay afloat.

“There’s no doubt the refocusing of the large waste levy revenues on new infrastructure to collect organics and remove hazardous products that contaminate kerbside recycling will help drive towards more and effective recycling. However, key parts of such a program cannot survive in the long term on government or private sector grant funding. For example, the drop-off centres need to be based on a financially sustainable business model - and this is where a beverage container deposit system provides a solution,” said Angel.

“Certainly organics are an important priority, but the key to creating a market for the compost is that it is clean and won’t poison crops or land. Again you need an effective way to remove contaminants such as plastic and chemicals. We’ll need fully effective and viable drop-offs and collection programs to get this stuff out of kerbside.”

Another result of the waste levy review was the need for NSW to develop a modern energy from waste policy, aiming not to get the most waste into energy recovery but to get the most energy out of waste that cannot be recycled cost-effectively. A multistakeholder committee comprising representatives from the NSW Environment Protection Authority, industry, environment groups and local government has developed a draft version of the policy.

Angel said the government “will need to be very careful about its prospective waste to energy policy. If not handled well, it could blow up today’s announcement by characterising the recycling policy as going down the road of ‘incineration’ if recycling becomes too difficult or not financially viable.”

A draft energy from waste policy statement will be released shortly for public comment. In the meantime, NSW residents can read further information about the Waste Less, Recycle More initiative at http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/waste/wasteless.htm.