According to a new study if Australia treated recycling waste like iron ore or coal the nation could be more than $300 million better off each year.
Instead, Australia makes just $4 million a year from recycling due to high levels of contamination in co-mingled recycling bins.
A new report from professional services company EY estimates Australia could generate up to $328 million worth of recyclable material each year if world-class recycling systems are implemented.
“We must start realising and treating our waste as a tradeable commodity, like iron ore or gold, rather than just waste,” EY Climate Change and Sustainability Partner, Terence Jeyaretnam told AAP Newsagency.
“The old way of sorting our waste is not the right fit for 21st century Australia.
“Not only does it lead to poor environmental outcomes, it’s preventing us from grasping an opportunity worth hundreds of millions per year.”
Australia’s current co-mingled method of recycling is reducing the value from a typical kerbside bin to as low as $2 a tonne.
The report found Australia could get as much as $156 a tonne if the recycling was sorted better.
For example, a high-density polyethylene milk bottle collected as mixed plastic waste has a market value of $110 a tonne, well short of the market value for clean bottles at $500 a tonne.
“Contamination rates in Australia average between four and 16 per cent of collected recyclable material,” the report said.
“These high contamination rates are a key reason why countries across Asia closed their doors to Australia’s waste.”
AAP reports Australia’s recycling industry is in crisis after several overseas countries stopped taking Australian waste, and local processors were unable to keep up with demand.
Major operator SKM Recycling collapsed owing millions of dollars after regulators shut down some of its processing plants and it was no longer able to send recycling overseas.
Councils in the southern state of Victoria are currently paying to send recycling straight to landfill rather than getting it processed.
The EY report recommends better education about contamination, making it more convenient to recycle, improving sorting and developing new markets for recyclable materials.
The report said Australia’s kerbside recycling was not optimised to gain the best value from the materials collected, especially in the current climate.
“While we are seeing early signs of hope with some councils responding to the recycling crisis by introducing additional bins to better separate materials, more needs to be done to extract the full value of this resource,” it said.
EY’s behavioural change experts said it was it was important to both make it easier to understand what to recycle, as well as making it more convenient to do.
By doing so, this would create a larger group of effective recyclers, and reduce the number wish-cyclers, recyclers of convenience and people who do nothing.
The EY report said making it easier to know what to do, for example, could be achieved by having well-designed recycling bins, appropriate signage and reward systems for people/households that do the right thing.
Australia’s conservative Liberal-National Prime Minister Scott Morrison has vowed to do more to tackle plastic waste in the world’s oceans, promising to ban the export of waste plastic, paper, glass and tyres.
Mr Morrison said only about 12 per cent of materials were properly recycled in Australia and he wanted that to change.
The EY report said the announcement that Australia’s Environment Ministers had been tasked with banning the export of recyclable plastic waste and other materials in favour of developing a domestic market was welcomed by many, including the recycling sector.
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