https://press2talk.com.au https://press2talk.com.au Waste Management Review delivers quality, multi-platform communications that showcase the world-class Australian waste management and resource recovery industries. Sign up to our e-newsletter. FEATURES Australia’s first incinerator bottom ash plant ready to run Setting new standards for e-waste ESG Taking waste equipment to the next level Meet the ‘landfill whisperer’ Fuel in FOCUS BINGO Industries is opening the gateway to the alternative fuel market. PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY: PMS 380 PMS 376 PMS 355 MARCH 2023 Waste Management Review www.wastemanagementreview.com.au 2023 | MARCH | ISSUE 71 FEATURES Plastic-munching microbes PV upcycling Breaking the mould Waste liquid, not fuel POSITIVE VISION Ecocycle’s Tyson Ord details a national solution for a problematic waste stream. PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY: PMS 380 PMS 376 PMS 355 APRIL 2023 Waste Management Review www.wastemanagementreview.com.au 2023 | APRIL | ISSUE 72 Inside Waste is the industry’s essential resource for keeping up with all the news, moves, projects, trends and developments in the Australian waste sector. ISSUE 112 | FEB/MAR 2023 By Justin Bonsey FEW events in waste have captured our attention in recent months like REDcycle’s suspension of soft plastic collections. What the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and others have dubbed a ‘collapse’ has been variously referred to as a ‘crisis’, ‘debacle’, ‘shock’ and a ‘botched plastic bag recycling program’. Such myopic interpretations of what is effectively a common value chain disruption to a much-loved cultural institution belie the reality that REDcycle was always the odds- against underdog subbing in to do what plastic packaging producers, importers, and retailers – with or without a government mandate – should do as part of a responsible business model: ensuring the cost of doing business is not externalised onto the environment, communities or government. Putting into perspective the scale of our disproportionate distraction: REDcycle, a small social enterprise, collected only 7,000 tonnes of soft plastics per year, or about three per cent of the roughly 250,000 tonnes used in Australia annually. Soft plastics constitute about 10 per cent of our plastic waste, of which only 13 per cent is processed for recycling and, presumably but not necessarily, recycled into products. This means that the volume of soft plastics at large represents just under 0.01 per cent of Australia’s 75.8 million tonnes per annum of waste. Of this, there has been market demand for only a small fraction of REDcycle’s collected volumes, leading to warehouses of stockpiled plastics (which may still find a future market). Flipping the maths, we’re many thousands of times more worried than we need to be – and we’re looking in the wrong direction. This is not to diminish the extraordinary achievement of REDcycle and its partners in setting up a popular drop-off, logistics, and market-making opportunity for highly contaminated, hard-to-recycle, mixed-polymer plastics that no one else wants. Rather, it is to illustrate the absurdity of bemoaning one small piece of a larger puzzle whose true crisis stems from the supply chain, politics, and a tradition of prioritising short-term profit over long-term distributed benefits. A classic case of polishing the Porsche while the elephant in the room ravages the house behind us, or painting a collapsing hovel in glittering gold. But a crisis, real or perceived, is a terrible thing to waste, so let’s embrace it as a trigger for refocusing our attention from the comforting bastion of resource recovery to the higher-order principles of a circular economy, the true ESG opportunities that are just beginning to emerge. Two heartening trends to emerge from the somewhat histrionic media response and subsequent community outcry have been an underlying devotion for soft plastic drop-off akin to that of a cultural institution, and that the rug of soft plastic complaisance has been pulled out from under us, leaving us squinting into the post-BAU glory of possibilities for a top-down strategically co-ordinated whole-of-value-chain approach. This has started to clear the way for the bigger-picture thinking we desperately need to not just stop the bleeding but to heal the wound. (Continued on page 21) ONE of the seminars at the recent Waste Expo held in Melbourne was entitled Key Waste Issues and Strategy 2022 and Beyond. Facilitated by TOMRA Cleanaway Communications and Engagement manager, Michelle Mandl-Keating, the panel took a deep dive into some of the key issues in the waste industry that will need addressing over the next 12 months. One of the panellists was Jared Smith, a waste and sustainability engineer from the Torres Strait Island Regional Council. Smith has a whole list of challenges that he takes into consideration when thinking about the future, mainly because of the geographic outlay of his work area, which comprises 16 inhabited islands and more that 250 uninhabited locales. The islands cover more than 42,000 square kilometres from the northern tip of Australia’s Cape York to within the reaches of Papua New Guinea. Although the population is relatively small compared to other places, the logistics involved in taking care of the island’s waste needs are eye-opening. “Being island communities, we replicate several services,” Smith said. “There are 15 different water treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants. We also replicate waste management, which is quite limited at this point. We have faced some significant challenges as you can imagine – logistics are very complex when you’ve got 15 different communities.” Due to the proximity to Papua New Guinea, the Torres Strait Islands are in a protected biosecurity zone, which produces another set of challenges for Smith and his team. (Continued on page 24) The REDcycle crisis that never was 26 Driving resource recovery 41 Soft plastics solution 52 Equipment news Meet the ZR - Low speed. High torque. Maximum performance. Visit a reference site | Book a trial | Request a free waste audit | [email protected] Planning now for a better tomorrow PP: 100024538 ISSN 1837-5618 ISSUE 113 | APR/MAY 2023 By Inside Waste When the news broke that soft plastics collection business REDcycle had been storing soft plastics it had been collecting from Coles and Woolworths, company founder Liz Kasell knew it wasn’t a good look. Starting from an inkling of an idea she had 10 years ago, the scheme had grown too big, too fast – exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company recently went into liquidation despite Kasell and her team’s best efforts to make things right. So, what went wrong? To find out, you need to start at the beginning of the end – when the news broke in the mainstream media about soft plastic bales being stockpiled in warehouses throughout Victoria and New South Wales. It wasn’t that the bales of soft plastics had been found – after all there was no deliberate attempt to hide them – but the perception amplified by an over-excited media that inferred there were nefarious reasons for the stockpiling. While Kasell readily admits REDcycle could have done things differently, she has not stopped working to find, and help build, end-markets for the plastics and to negate the partisan narrative that had been in the public arena. To understand how the warehouse situation unfolded, you must go back the best part of 24 months during COVID. Kasell describes it as a perfect storm in terms of the timeline and how things happened. COVID has been blamed for a lot of events and outcomes over the past three years – whether it be supply chain issues, supermarkets running out of stock, and a downturn in business for industries such as travel and hospitality. When it comes to the waste industry, there haven’t been too many knock-on effects, other than staffing shortages in some areas. With REDcycle, there was an opposite effect – too much feedstock. “All of a sudden, all of our downstream capacity was affected,” Kasell said. “For five years, we knew for example, a bin would get filled once a day, every day. We knew that bin was going to get filled seven times a week and so we allocated that much space all the way through the pipeline. “Then, due to people staying at home all day through COVID, those bins were filling 12 times a day, or 15 times a day. If you multiply that by over a thousand locations, you realise the volumes I am talking about. (Continued on page 21) ONE of the first things Tony Chappel did when he became the CEO of the NSW EPA was give a speech at the 2022 Australian Waste and Recycling Expo (AWRE), where he talked about “collective” collaboration between the state government, and waste and resource recovery stakeholders. Nine months down the track, how is that collaboration panning out? “I’ve been a little surprised by some of the entrenched positions, both within industry and the EPA itself. “Changing the way we work with industry and transitioning to a more collaborative approach isn’t going to happen overnight, it will take time and commitment but I firmly believe it will achieve the best outcomes for the environment, economy and communities. “The real focus is trying to look for opportunities to bring that conversation into the light and get people talking more productively.” Arriving in Australia from South Africa when he was two, the now ‘Ausified’ Chappel’s tertiary education includes a raft of degrees – a Bachelor of Laws and Economics from Sydney University, a Masters In Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford, as well as another Masters, this time in Environmental Engineering Technology/Environmental Technology from the Imperial College London, and finally a Master of Business Administration, Banking, Corporate, Finance and Securities Law from AGSM UNSW. (Continued on page 24) Walking the thin RED line 28 A new way to sort waste 34 No butts 36 Focus on FOGO Meet the ZR - Low speed. High torque. Maximum performance. Visit a reference site | Book a trial | Request a free waste audit | [email protected] NSW EPA focussed on collaboration PP: 100024538 ISSN 1837-5618 What now for soft plastic waste? REDcycle founder Liz Kasell. Sign up to our e-newsletter. For more information or advertising queries, contact [email protected] or call 0425 699 878. 104 > Exhibitor Profiles
