Sweeping changes to China’s rubbish policies have put extra strain on one of Wagga’s disability services.
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Kurrajong Recyclers, which holds the contract for Wagga’s kerbside recycling waste, has been left with little choice but to dump certain plastics into landfill after the Chinese government placed tough limits on importing western waste.
Tim Macgillycuddy, operations manager at Kurrajong Recyclers, said it was having an impact on the workers and the organisation’s bottom line.
“When your recycling gets here we sort it into individual components, then it gets bailed up and various parts of various commodities are sent to domestic or overseas markets, so (China’s) ban certainly has affected what we have to do,” Mr Macgillycuddy said. “It’s having a big impact on Kurrajong because we have to send it to landfill now as waste and we have to dispose of every tonne that comes here from the kerbside collection at full commercial rates – there’s no discounts or credits for us. So if you’re in doubt about whether it can be recycled, throw it in the red-lidded bin.”
The unlikely message from someone in waste-reduction was out of necessity, Mr Macgillycuddy said, as there were no Australian plants that could recycle many common plastics.
“We still take most of the stuff out of the yellow-lidded bin, but we’d encourage people not to put in things like meat trays - the clear plastic trays and biscuit trays - the ones from the bakery, that sort of thing,” he said. “They’re the big contaminant in plastics now because China no longer takes it and nowhere in Australia can recycle it. It’s all very well to want to recycle something but you’ve got to have an end use for it and unfortunately domestic manufacturers have no need for any of that type of material that’s used to make those trays.”
China’s new stance had come at a time when people were more aware of their waste than ever before. Television campaigns had put a face to the people who sorted through waste, while the ABC’s War On Waste exposed the need to take garbage seriously. At the same time, Wagga City Council’s move to a food organics (FOGO) system was aimed at reducing the amount of waste that went into landfill.
“It’s changed the way we sort things, but we have 60 supported employees with disabilities and they still get to do good things for the environment and the city,” Mr Macgillycuddy said.