The Australasian Waste and Recycling Expo 2023 Summit is set to provide a reality check for Australia’s national resource recovery system.
Despite the urgency for change in Australia’s resource recovery system, the 2022 National Waste Report showed that the nation is moving backwards.
The national waste plan aims to reduce the total waste generated by 10 per cent per person by 2030, however Australia’s waste production has increased by 2.48 tonnes per person, according to the report.
The 2023 Australasian Waste and Recycling Expo (AWRE) summit is set to provide a wake-up call for the system.
The full-day summit will bring together industry, government and waste experts to discuss the roadblocks hindering investment, how to fix resource recovery and infrastructure challenges.
The summit is hosted by the National Waste and Recycling Industry Council (NWRIC), the Waste Contractors and Recyclers Association (WCRA) and the Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR).
Suzanne Toumbourou, Chief Executive Officer at ACOR, says it will be a valuable forum for industry.
“Being able to engage with the people in the sector, to exchange ideas and to learn more about what’s being done is the kind of brainstorming that only happens when you’re able to engage in person,” Suzanne says.
“It’s exciting to see the depth of expertise, the excellence of the industry and the innovation continuously growing.”
The theme ‘Australia’s Reality Check – Recycling & Residuals’ provides the basis of discussion for the day.
Tony Khoury, Executive Director of WCRA in New South Wales says the summit is an opportunity to highlight the issues that need to be addressed by state, territory, and federal regulators for there to be sustainable waste management and resource recovery outcomes.
Rick Ralph, Chief Executive Officer for NWRIC agrees. He believes the conversation around how the nation intends to manage its long-term waste generated by a growing economy has been stopped, but is one that should continue.
“Australia is facing unprecedented risks in terms of how it will manage, long term, its residuals from the waste the nation is generating,” Rick says.
He cites a business environment where the licensing or planning of facilities can take more than seven years before construction even occurs, or the development is stopped by community challenges to the courts, and limited policy settings that encourage the nation to embrace waste-to-energy technologies, as examples of roadblocks.
“The AWRE 2023 Summit will present on these risks and provide industry insights and solutions in which the opportunities governments and communities more broadly aspire to achieve, can be met.”
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has seven ambitious targets outlined in the National Waste Policy, addressing the current hurdles for the nation’s waste management. It includes achieving an 80 per cent average recovery rate from all waste streams by 2030 and phasing out problematic and unnecessary plastics by 2025.
Suzanne says there is evident commitment from across the supply chain to achieve these targets relating to waste reduction, recycling, packaging, and the circular economy. What’s missing is some of the fundamental underpinnings for change, starting with the distinction between waste and recovered resources.
She says that given Australia hasn’t delivered the systems-wide change that is needed to achieve the resource recovery targets or move more closely towards them, it would’ve been against-the-odds for the numbers to be moving forward.
To progress, she says four key challenges need to be addressed.
“The first is a regulatory environment. Our environmental protection regulation is not aligned with circular economy outcomes. There is an over emphasis on managing pollution or risk and a lack of balance and emphasis in industry development,” Suzanne says.
“Second is end markets. Recycling is a system. The system is comprised of three things: collection, processing, and markets. If one of those things doesn’t work, the whole system doesn’t work. We absolutely need to be able to collect and aggregate in a scaled way, the type of infrastructure that can source, reprocess, and remanufacture is also needed. Without end markets, recycling can’t work.
“The next priority that needs progress to move resource recovery forward is product stewardship. It’s a real responsibility by producers over what they put into the supply chain, what we end up with and what we’re able to recover and recycle.”
Suzanne says the right behaviours in the community are also needed for progress. The fourth priority is the need for businesses and individuals who recycle correctly.
“As soon as you put the wrong waste in the wrong bins, you end up with contamination for the recycling sector,” she says. “The material doesn’t go where it needs to and does not get recycled. So, recycling right is a priority.”
Suzanne hopes the summit will result in a consensus on action to be taken.
“With the reality check about where the nation is sitting right now, hopefully, we can find a shared consensus about the next step,” she says. “Ideally, when it comes to the results of the next national waste report, my aim is that in future we’ll see a national resource recovery and recycling report, separate and distinct.
“We’ll see some much better metrics out of further iterations. This kind of dialogue can help us move towards our resource recovery, packaging and waste reduction targets.”
The Australasian Waste and Recycling Expo 2023 will be from 26-27 July at the International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Sydney. The summit will run in the same location on 26 July.
The 2023 expo will see the return of the innovation zone for exhibitors to pitch waste solutions and the AORA organic zone. It will also introduce a new recycled zone focused on innovative products made from recycled or repurposed material.
Ticket information and a full program will be released in coming weeks.
For more information, visit: www.awre.com.au
