A recipe for recycling success

A panel session at Waste Expo Australia unpacked examples of recycling success in a large construction project in Victoria.

A six-bin system, IoT-enabled bins (Internet of Things), and a milk keg system have proven successful waste management practices on a major Victorian construction project.

Suzannah Morrison, Sustainability Administrator at ACCIONA, works on the M80RR Completion Project, which is delivering the northern part of the North East Link project in Melbourne – the missing link to Melbourne’s freeway network – provided insights into creating transformational change at a panel session at Waste Expo 2024. Morrison was joined by Steven Korner, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Method Recycling.

The session covered tools, tips and strategies that helped construction companies and alliance projects become waste management leaders.

With most of our time spent at work, Suzannah said it is important to add occupations to the list of places where recycling is a priority.

“The driving reasons for change are to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions which are a direct relation to climate change,” she said.

“In 2023 Australia’s waste generated approximately 13.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, by 2030 Australia aims to recover 80 per cent of all waste streams.

“Australia’s circular economy rate is 3.7 with a global average of 8.8, so setting up the things we want to see happen to reduce as much waste as possible and improve the quality of recycling is our aim.”

Project Overview

The North East Link project is a major State Government project in Melbourne’s north, consisting of four sections.

Beginning in the south on the Eastern Freeway, Eastern Busway and Twin tunnels in Yarraville, over to the M80 Ring Road project in the north, which Morrison is working on.

With more than 1000 people working on the M80 project alone, the scale of the project is large and in the public eye.

With that, Suzannah said, comes a high level of expectation in regard to recycling.

“Doing better is not an option, it’s a requirement,” she said.

“In nature, there is no such thing as waste, everything is recycled.”

For this reason, the project has adopted a zero-waste lens, focusing on holistic waste management and creating a circular economy.

“Our starting point was a holistic approach across our office and lunchroom settings.”

To do their part in reaching circular economy goals the M80 project, the team implemented a six-bin system, as the three-bin system was “not an option.”

“Three bin systems are often contaminated, the words mixed or co-mingled become a recipe for wishcycling (the well-intentioned but unfounded belief that something is recyclable when it’s not),” she said.

“If you want to make real change, you want to expand at least to a five or six bin system.”

The more bins, the less contamination, especially in the area of plastic which Suzannah said gets people especially confused.

“Soft plastics often become very confused when there’s only one option for recycling with the yellow bin.

“We trialled the six bin system with one station initially and now we are up to 15 stations across the entire project.”

Challenges

During her time working on the M80 project, Suzannah has experienced several barriers to waste management, including the perception that recycling costs more, and the disconnection between decision-makers and waste management.

“Often people with authority are disconnected from the world of waste and recycling. It’s a case of out of sight, out of mind,” she said.

People often also have a preconceived view on where waste goes, hence a lack of understanding of resource recycling potential.

Accurate data collection is also a challenge, especially in large buildings with multiple floors.

“In our case, data collection is monthly, and extracting accurate data across floors of a 10-storey building is not an easy feat,” she said.

Other challenges include limited recycling collections and contaminated loads from waste servicing providers.

Innovations

Steven said introducing an IoT system has been beneficial in measuring waste in real-time, providing actionable data for behaviour change.

“The IoT system measures how much waste is going through each of the bins, connected to a weight scale which is measuring constantly, 24/7,” he said.

“The beauty of that, is that you can actually see what’s happening throughout the day.”

Across the 15 stations, Steven said customized bins have allowed for accurate reporting of waste contents, enhancing transparency and education.

This is due to the team having the option to compare one station to another and provide feedback in real time which is also useful for rectifying issues.

“You can make that behaviour change in real time compared to other more traditional systems,” he said.

Communication

Suzannah said a key point to making the system work is transparency. Clear communication during induction sessions helps build trust and educate the workforce on waste management practices.

“Education is a key factor for us,” she said.

“Especially when running our workforce through the recycling journey beginning with these bins to the end destination, as we try and inform them as much as possible.

“Everyone that works on our project must be inducted on this, this is also a great way to build trust.”

Another important key to success according to Suzannah is consistency. Consistency in bin placement and regular monitoring ensures that waste management practices become innate.

“I recently watched somebody walk past the bins with two or three things in their hands, and within a second they had all waste in the right bins,” she said.

“It takes a little bit of time at the beginning, but it’s innate to the point that they would not know what to do if they were given only one bin.”

Suzannah recommends innovating processes and practices wherever possible.

“Sustainability is a byproduct of innovation. We recommend collaborating and sharing knowledge,” she said.

“Keep a finger on the pulse, keep researching. It’s a very fluid space and it’s so dynamic.

“There are some amazing people out there, with continuous improvement today’s accomplishments are yesterday’s impossibilities.”