A million tons of rubbish

This is getting serious - for government.

Fairfax has gone to the trouble of expressing this in graphics. A billion kilograms sounds much more dramatic than a million metric tons.

https://www.theage.com.au/environme...sh-in-need-of-a-new-home-20180406-p4z88a.html

The 'recycling centres' are stacked with waste.  If it goes to landfill designated for putrescent garbage, they will fill very quickly.  Governments are intimately familiar with the nightmare decades-long task of zoning tips and really really don't want to use them up any faster than necessary.

We are fresh out of easy lazy options like exporting it to China. Everything in the shops comes generously wrapped in plastic, so anti-waste publicity programs will have little effect.  Households will be scolded to separate more carefully, but enforcing this will be difficult and cause great resentment with political consequences - no mainstream pollie wants to destroy precious political capital on this matter. If the Marxist Greens indulge in virtue signalling around reducing consumption, alienated ordinary citizens will flee to some other answer, any other answer.

Intense and accurate sorting activity in the recycling centres looks to be the solution. Upgrading recycling processes will take buckets of capital.  Vik & team will need to be incentivised with cold hard cash in higher fees and even perhaps grants.

CWY is exquisitely placed to benefit from this crisis.

Ash