Link to my post in Plastic packaging & plastic bags, as both topics are addressed in it.
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In Victoria we are about to get another bin for our glass.So four in total.To me that is going to far.Waste Management says it helps stop contamination what a lot of rubbish.You still going to get contamination anyway.I feel they just want an excuse to make there job easier.People that don’t have much room for there bins anyway what are they supposed to do.Not good enough
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I understand that in Sweden 99% of waste is recycled…the citizens have learnt to cope with 7 bins! But, in return virtually nothing goes to a tip, 52% is converted to producing electricity and 47 % is recycled. I think that the result makes the individual effort worthwhile…
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That isn’t correct. This is a summary…
Are you sure? I ask only because the article you directed me to appears to mention figures from 1916/1917 and 1918 only! Sweden has made remarkable advances in recycling every year, which, no doubt, is why they need to import waste from the UK and others to keep their power generators working to capacity! Anyway, whatever the figures say, Sweden is to be commended on their achievement and I am sure they will achieve 100% in recycling everything long before the rest of us do!
Yes, I am sure. This is possibly where your 99% figure came from…
These are some relative country figures from 2019…and Sweden, while it appears on the list, it is not the world leader.
https://www.lovemoney.com/gallerylist/89902/recycling-countries-best-worst
Sweden does import and reprocess recycled materials from other EU countries (it also burns waste from other countries). Unfortunately some articles/bloggers then assumed that Sweden must recycle all its own materials and need more from others. This is an incorrect assumption…otherwise one could say many Asian countries have near 100% recycling rates as they import materials to be recycled from other countries.
It is also worth noting that waste to energy isn’t recycling, it is another use for the material. Burning removes any future opportunity to reuse the materials for any preburnt use. Sweden’s and many other EU count waste to energy figures as recycling, which is incorrect.
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I see where you are coming from but I feel that incinerating waste to produce energy fits into the quaternary recycling process. Usually here we hear about primary, secondary and tertiary recycling but in Europe there are four processes. Pyrosis is now, I believe, preferred to incineration. It has been trialled for several years but only recently have the “bugs” been worked out! I believe South Korea has built many such plants and China and India are also using this recycling (absolutely) option! Must soon be our turn?
I see where you are coming from but I feel that incinerating waste to produce energy fits into the quaternary recycling process. Usually here we hear about primary, secondary and tertiary recycling but in Europe there are four processes. Pyrolysis is now, I believe, preferred to incineration. It has been trialled for several years but only recently have the “bugs” been worked out! I believe China is now building
Pressed ‘reply’ too soon - apologies! China, India, South Korea have all Invested in such plants which are definitely ‘recycling’. Must be our turn soon?
This currently occurs in Australia for suitable organic processing wastes…bagasse, timber/green waste, fuel substitution such as tyres in furnabes/kilns, etc. A large scale general waste to energy plant is yet to be developed, but there has been some discussion about a future one in Western Australia.
The challenges with waste to energy is getting reliable, quality, high volume feedstock. The Swedish have discovered this buy having to import waste to satisify their local feedstock demand. In other countries they are diverting other waste streams or making waste (cutting trees down for the purpose) to ensure ongoing fuel supply.
Incineration should also be considered when there is no other option for the waste…to avoid landfilling/dumping in the environment. With Sweden recycling at ~50%, this is low and should be much higher if they are maximising their recycling practices and potential recyclable materials. The other ~50% is waste to energy and there is possibly no incentive to increase recycling rates as the material is demanded hy waste to energy. It is a two sword scenario.
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Then pyrolysis must be the way to go…no CO2 and useable product at the end of the process! Interim stops on the way to the ‘perfect’ solution must be commended as better than waste to landfill. I have faith that we will get there but, unfortunately, with little spare cash in the near future, who knows when!
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Problem cotton crop waste now turned into valuable compost.
Great stuff.
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Oh, I never thought that Australia has garbage problem like that. I thought that it is strict when it comes to such issue. I also hope this will be addressed soon.
A good news story regarding recycling old tyres in Australia.
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RMIT researchers develop a road base material from building rubble and old tyres.
Great stuff.
4 Corners on ABC tonight (8:31pm) has a story that will be of interest to those following this thread
Four Corners
Monday, 10 Aug
Series 2020 | Episode 27 | Plastic Wars
8:31 PM - 9:17 PM [46 mins]
Repeated on Tuesday 11 Aug at 10:00 AM, ABC
We reveal how ‘big plastic’ used clever marketing campaigns to persuade consumers and environmental groups to carry the burden by recycling rather than reducing the amount of plastic manufactured, allowing exponential growth.
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This is the response of the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association response to the US program run on Four Corners on 10 August 2020…
Plastic Wars - the truth about packaging and recycling
Last night’s ABC Four Corners program, ‘Plastic Wars’ reiterates what the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) has been calling out for years – packaging design in Australia needs an urgent overhaul and producers must be held responsible for the products they make.Recycling, to a large extent, works, with 27 million tonnes recovered annually. In Australia, we are on the cusp of change with a growing appetite to use materials collected and recycled in domestic manufacturing and numerous waste and resource recovery industry players that have proven, viable, and high-quality secondary alternatives to virgin materials. However, as Four Corners illustrated last night, recycling cannot and is not the be all and end all when it comes to plastic packaging.
“The key take-away from last night’s program is that business as usual for plastic packaging does not work. We also need to recognise that recycling in many ways is an end-of-pipe solution that does not tackle the growing and persistent problem highlighted in the show – that of unsustainable plastic packaging design and production,” WMRR CEO, Ms Gayle Sloan, said.
“The narrative that’s being pushed - that solving plastic packaging is all about recycling and the consumer being responsible for sorting - is unfair and incorrect; we cannot sort our way out of this! As so eloquently stated last night, this emphasis has taken all the oxygen from ongoing debates away from ‘reduce and re-use’. We need to continue the great work of many states like SA and Queensland and eliminate single-use packaging, while addressing the real elephant in the room and focus seriously on design at a national level.
“The issues highlighted are global. However, here is Australia, WMRR has been calling out for a mandatory product stewardship scheme for packaging. The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) has failed over the last two decades to curb the scourge of unrecyclable packaging and has so far missed all voluntary targets that have been set over the last 20 years for the packaging industry. Enough is enough.
“How is it that after years of studies highlighting the problem with packaging in general, and plastics in particular, that Australia is still using outdated data - that being 2017-18 - which includes ‘technically recyclable’ as a criteria? As last night’s show unveiled, ‘technically recyclable’ does not mean it’s realistically or economically recyclable,” Ms Sloan said.
The focus must be on design; here in Australia, it means legislated design standards and this includes the materials selected to ensure they are genuinely recyclable in Australia and not in a lab. The issue at hand is not Australia’s collection or sorting systems. Unfortunately, Australia still doesn’t place enough emphasis on the role of generators to ensure they are responsible for both the design and responsible management of their materials throughout the supply chain.
“We need to take this back to first principles, with legislated (not voluntary) design standards, and if a producer does not want to follow these, then they must have their own funded collections systems. The narrative put forward by the packaging industry has completely deflected from producer responsibility and meeting the true cost of collecting and recycling these materials; instead these are being passed on to householders at the kerb,” Ms Sloan said.
“It is time for bold change, it is time for a carrot and stick approach to tackle packaging, and it is time for mandatory targets and enforcement of these targets to put the onus back on packaging generators – we absolutely cannot allow this system to continue on to 2025 when we know these 2025 voluntary targets cannot and will not be met.”
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One example of how far we have not come.
Recycle me?
Only if you remember to remove the mostly plastic cap and pump assembly to place in the Bin for landfill first. Around 50% of the mass is in that waste.
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That’s sort of right, and as outlined in an above post, while the bottle and pump would be recyclable, having the two means that the container would become mixed plastic in the recycling stream. Mixed plastic has a negative value as it is cheaper to use new and no-one wants it due to its high variability.
The bottle looks like PET which is one of the more desirable (and positive value) recyclable plastics.
The pump unit in itself could be mixed plastic, depending on location and function. Add this to a clean PET container, and the whole of the container becomes mixed plastic or unwanted/negative value.
The pump itself would be very difficult to separate in the recycling process as its long narrow shape would cause snags/blockages in the sorting and separation processes.
I have noticed that more and more container have caps/lids/pumps to be binned as waste and the remainder of the container (one plastic type) as recyclable. This change is likely to accelerate across all package labelling as mixed plastic will become a bigger problem in the future, and it it can be avoided, the chances of the single plastic type product being reduced increases,
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Doesn’t this problem consequently belong to Colgate Palmolive, and not the consumer and not our council recycling or landfill services? It is their design, not ours. Really and honestly, no point of argument as we see it.
I thought this was the thrust of the prior referenced ABC 4Corners programme. The manufacturers of the containers and the products are intent in brain washing consumers recycling is a consumer issue. It is not a concern of Colgate Palmolive or their container manufacturer.
To me the only way to fix this is to compel legally retailers to take back 100% of the packaging. Further to ban landfill and combustible disposable of such wastes. In the interim consumers are the fools for accepting the current deficient wasteful products. I count our household in that group of fools.
There is no justification for the current product lines to continue to be packaged as designed. As far as practical we choose refills over new pump packs. However this is not the norm on the supermarket shelves, and indeed the refills per ml often cost more than the more expensively packaged dispenser included product.
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