This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Australia’s kerbside recycling systems are at risk of collapse, a Senate inquiry has heard. China’s ban on importation of recyclable rubbish has left councils and state governments in Victoria and New South Wales scrambling to find space to stockpile growing mounds of waste.

An estimated half of Australia’s recyclable waste was going to China before the ban, the hearing was told, although the precise share of waste exported was not known.

Victoria was already in crisis – waste contractors to 13 regional councils had stopped accepting recyclables last month.



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A similar number of local councils in NSW are facing the collapse of kerbside recycling collection programs due to contractors refusing to take the material, according to Linda Scott, the president of the NSW Local Government Association, which represents the state’s 128 local councils.



“This is a crisis about whether or not recycling will be able to continue in Australia in the future, and we are deeply concerned about the state of the industry and what services councils can continue to deliver in the short to medium future,” Scott told the inquiry.



Tony Khoury from the Waste Contractors and Recycling Association of NSW said the state was a month away from the same crunch point as Victoria.

In Victoria, the state government stepped in on 23 February with $13m for councils to guarantee ratepayers’ bins were still picked up. But it is a stopgap that only lasts until 1 July, after which the state’s environment minister Lily D’Ambrosio indicated councils would have to pick up the bill for increased recycling costs on their own.



In NSW, where councils have rate-capping, it would be harder to pass on the costs to ratepayers.



A spokeswoman for the NSW environment minister, Gabrielle Upton, said the minister had met with industry and local governments to find a solution, but stopped short of promising funds to shore up household recycling collection.

“The need to ensure kerbside collections can continue in the immediate term was agreed as paramount,” the spokeswoman said, so the NSW EPA was assessing sites for increased stockpiles of recyclable material.

“This action will help to support the continuation of kerbside recycling services, while providing temporary relief to industry as it searches for new recycling markets in Australia and overseas,” she said.

But Khoury said: “Stockpiling is not the answer. It’s a very, very short-term solution. It might give you a week or two weeks at best.”

Stockpiles of unprocessed materials are a significant fire risk, he said, following two waste fires at NSW processing facilities in the past 12 months.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fire and Rescue NSW officers fighting a fire at a metal recycling plant in St Marys, Sydney, in October. Photograph: AAP

China’s ban on importing 24 categories of solid waste, including some plastics, glass and textiles, has thrown the global recycling industry into turmoil. Dubbed the “national sword policy”, it was announced in July to the World Trade Organisation and came into effect on 1 January, leading to an abrupt collapse in the price that industry operators could get for household waste materials.

“The China thing has knocked out half the world’s demand for recyclables,” Khoury told the hearing. “Reportedly half of ours went to China, so that’s a 50% reduction in demand for the materials.



“The intention is to increase stockpile limits, not send it to landfill. But that is not realistic, there will be material going to landfill,” he said. “There is nowhere else to push it anymore. We have to find a solution here and it’s going to cost.”

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Some materials recovery facilities could improve their product to meet the new Chinese standards by employing more labour to sort and check the material to remove contaminants, he said.



But he said the state government would need to help by committing funds to assist the industry make the transition.

Australia recycled almost 60% of the 64m tonnes of waste it produced in 2014-15, according to the Australian National Waste Report 2016 prepared for the Department of Environment and Energy. But it also sent a very high proportion to landfill, compared with similar economies.

The evidence heard by the committee painted a picture of an industry on the verge of collapse that is undervalued by state and federal governments, leaving the “critical infrastructure” of waste management to local councils which say they don’t have the power or financial capacity to manage it.



But some stakeholders believe the China ban will spur much-needed innovation and change in the local waste processing industry.



The longer term solution would involve investment in onshore processing capacity and the development of local markets for recycled glass and plastic products to “shore up kerbside collections”, Scott said.





