Recycle

Recycling saves energy because the manufacturer doesn't have to produce something new from raw natural resources. By using recycled materials  We save on energy consumption, which keeps production costs down. Recycling reduces the need for more landfills. No one wants to live next to a landfill.

Look up 'Cash for Containers'  or 'Return and Earn' on the internet an you will find a way to recycle glass, plastic and aluminium bottles across Australia. In Sydney we have Tomra as our local provider of Container Banks who are doing a great job of buying our recyclables back. Be prepared for the machine to reject some of your recycling for the usual yellow recycling bin. Some items will not be accepted.

In Australia we have a great paper and cardboard recycling infrastructure which is well utilised however focus is required in the household to remove the food content before placing it in the yellow bin.

South Australia is leading the way in collecting recyclable  glass. They gets 10 times the price for glass collected, because they colour-sort glass through their container deposit scheme, and there is less broken glass because refunds only occur on whole bottle. This wouldn’t be an issue in NSW if they had the same effective recycling scheme.

It is unfortunate that alot of used glass is sitting in a warehouse waiting on a recycling facility or being dumped in a traditional way anyway because of the cost of recycling. These recyclers are footing the cost of dumping glass inlandfill because of their inability to physically recycle the glass. This is a problem most people are completely unaware of.

The Greens are calling for mandatory product stewardship schemes for a range of problematic waste streams, including tyres, mattresses, paint, batteries and other electronic equipment. 

What is product stewardship?

Product stewardship is an approach to managing the impacts of different products and materials. It acknowledges that those involved in producing, selling, using and disposing of products. That Product Stewardship should include having a shared responsibility to ensure that those products or materials are managed in a way that reduces their impact, throughout their lifecycle, on the environment and on human health and safety.

Australia is not recycling much plastic at all and has fallen behind in all of it's plastic recycling infrastructure compared to the rest of the world. In a nutshell we are not recycling enough.

In short the waste industry is a focal point for anyone who is capable of facilitating recycling projects.