ISSUE 112 | FEB/MAR 2023
26 Driving resource recovery 41 Soft plastics solution 52 Equipment news
Planning now for a better tomorrow
The REDcycle crisis that never was By Justin Bonsey
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)
PP: 100024538
ISSN 1837-5618
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 oddsagainst 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
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)
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