Wagga is ahead of the curve when it comes to dealing with the international recycling crisis, but there are growing calls to get smarter about food packaging.
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On January 1, China imposed a ban on the importation of lower-grade waste such as plastic scraps or mixed, unsorted paper. The ban hit Australia hard, with companies walking away from waste collection contracts, and recycling being stockpiled by councils who could not find anywhere to send it.
Kurrajong Recycling, which processes Wagga’s kerbside and “return and earn” recyclables, had been effected by the ban but manager Tim Macgillycuddy said they were finding alternatives to China.
“A lot of the problem is in the big material recovery facilities (MRFs) in Sydney and Melbourne, they’re not getting a massively clean product but we’re very fortunate that we’re meeting the specifications for both the domestic and export market,” Mr Macgillycuddy said. “We do have a stockpile of some products here but it’s not out of hand.”
The global recycling market’s reliance on China and a downturn in local manufacturing, combined with a renewed focus on domestic recycling had created a perfect storm, with waves now being felt across the country.
Every year, 920,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard are thrown out in Australia. That's like a newspaper sheet covering Wagga, Griffith, Temora and Urana.
Mr Macgillycuddy said getting rid of recycled glass had been an issue since 2014, when Australia’s last glass manufacturer shut down a lot of its furnaces. But crushing the glass into a sand and gravel-like material was seen as a way to encourage reuse by local governments in maintenance works. At the same time, there was a worldwide oversupply of “PET”, which was used to make plastic bottles.
However, aluminium cans were easily recycled and Mr Macgillycuddy said Kurrajong had recently been sending paper and cardboard to domestic mills like Visy’s Tumut plant, as well as exporting white paper to India.
“It’s not really a quality issue now, China’s just shut the gate on everything and it’s nearly impossible to meet their specifications, so people don’t want to take a risk on sending shipping containers there,” Mr Macgillycuddy said. “But this is really about education, we all survived before plastic bags became common and there’s no reason we can’t survive without them again. We need to be proactive about not buying things like meat wrapped in three types of plastic or bananas in a tray – they already come in their own ‘stay-fresh’ package.”
Stephen Mudd
Stephen Mudd is a journalist for Fairfax Media west of the great divide. He loves music, dogs and travel.
Stephen Mudd is a journalist for Fairfax Media west of the great divide. He loves music, dogs and travel.
