The chief executive of Australia’s biggest waste management group, Cleanaway, says many Australian households have turned their yellowlid recycling bin into a de facto garbage bin, which is causing complications after China stopped importing waste.
Vik Bansal, who runs the company with a $3.2 billion sharemarket capitalisation and 3900 trucks and vehicles collecting waste in more than 90 local council areas across Australia, said an urgent re-education campaign was needed to help fix the problem.
He said the costs of sorting out waste streams from the complex mixture of items that many households now toss into their recycling bin had become uneconomic, and local councils needed to lead the charge.
Cleanaway, as the market leader in the industry, was also prepared to be on the front foot, but urgent action was needed.
‘‘Yellow bins have kind of become a second red [garbage] bin,’’ Mr Bansal said. ‘‘What we have done, is diverted,’’ he added, referring to the complicated task of sorting out the end products lobbed into household recycling bins in a market that had been temporarily upended by the China ban on taking imported waste.
‘‘Fundamentally, what we are seeing is a shift of a global supply chain model.’’
Mr Bansal emphasised there was still strong demand from China for pure recycled products. But the sorting of waste in China, which had been driven for many years by low labour costs in that country, had stopped because of the ban on imported waste from Australia and many other Western countries. That big structural shift required a nation-wide response on the ground in Australia.
‘‘At some point the responsibility has to reside with the council and the residents,’’ he said.
Most householders have good intentions and wanted to be diligent recyclers, but were putting in items that weren’t suitable.
Society had shifted over time away from the hard-core approach of recycling only paper, plastic and glass.
Cleanaway was bringing forward capital investment spending on new facilities with high-tech optical sensors able to sort waste products faster and with more precision after they had been brought into a depot. ‘‘Technology can resolve this sorting,’’ Mr Bansal said.
A new plant in Perth costing between $20 million and $25 million was part of this spend, with other capital cities to follow. ‘‘We will just bring this forward.’’
Before China’s decision in January to stop importing waste, China had been buying more than 600,000 tonnes of waste products each year from Australia. The ban triggered a collapse in the prices of many waste commodities that had previously been bought and sold by traders selling them to Asian countries, including China. They were then remanufacturing them into new products.
Cleanaway is still negotiating with a handful of local councils around Australia over higher fees as the market shifted and the economics changed.
Mr Bansal said there was a new ‘‘commercial reality’’ that hadn’t been acknowledged by some councils. The new economics of the industry and the complexities brought by other waste being mixed in with truly recyclable materials in yellow bins at a household level required a quick, national response, he said.
Mr Bansal also said he was in favour of a container deposit scheme being introduced right across Australia, rather than just in certain states.
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Ash here.
Vik calls for reeducation of households on recycle streams. Good luck with that! We will end up with bin-Nazis and a culture of fear. Which pollie is going to trash (!) their political capital on the thankless task of educating Aussies to sort their garbage? Do we really want to endure another exhausting and expensive education campaign?
My bet is on the technological solution - better sorting. No one knows what we will do with the product...
I am surprised he down-played the costs CWY faces installing high-tech optical sensors to sort waste. I think he should be wringing his hands on the staggering capital burdens being imposed on his little garbage company.
Alternately, he may be entirely comfortable with the knowledge CWY's tech lead is insurmountable - rivals' sorting kit may not be sophisticated enough to add optical sensors to, while CWY's is. I am no expert on sorting garbage and the truth probably lies somewhere between the two.
The dramatic change to Aussie garbage habits is a great opportunity for waste businesses. The States and LGA's will come up with new standards and processes. Fine. They can pay for it in higher waste charges.
The ABS has interesting data on waste:
Waste Generation by Industry and Households
During 2009-10, 53.7 million tonnes of waste was generated within the Australian economy, including imports.
The Construction industry generated the largest volume of waste with over 16.5 million tonnes, representing 31% of the total waste generated during 2009-10.
The largest volume of waste generated by industry and households was masonry materials, which accounted for 37% (19.8 million tonnes) of the total waste generated in 2009-10. Organic waste was the second largest generator by type, representing 24% (12.8 million tonnes) followed by paper and cardboard with 12% (6.4 million tonnes).
In 2010 the number of households in Australia was estimated to be 8.4 million with an average household consisting of 2.6 persons. Each household in Australia is estimated to produce almost 1.5 tonnes of waste each year for a total of 12.4 million tonnes.
Nearly half (47%) of all waste from households was organic waste and almost a quarter (23%) was paper and cardboard waste.
Over a third of Australians (35%) always compost or recycle garden waste and 23% always compost or recycle kitchen or food waste.
Almost 97% of households recycled and 73% reused consumed items. The most common items recycled or reused were paper and cardboard, glass, plastic bottles or containers and aluminium or steel cans. The most common way for households to recycle these items was to have the items collected from the house through kerbside bin collections.
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