While 30 years of reform have reshaped waste, Waste 2026 highlighted what’s needed to deliver the next phase.
Thirty years after it began as a largely landfill-focused conversation, the Waste 2026 conference in Coffs Harbour made one thing clear: the sector is no longer debating direction. It is grappling with delivery.
What emerged across three days was a sector under pressure but also one that is increasingly aligned on what needs to happen next.
As Penny Sharpe, New South Wales Minister for Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Heritage, made clear in her opening address, dwindling landfill capacity, rising waste volumes and ambitious 2030 recovery targets are converging, requiring governments, industry and communities to “pull many levers all at the same time”.
Targets are set. Policies are advancing. Expectations from regulators, communities and markets are rising. The challenge now is turning that alignment into systems that work.
The conference highlighted that there’s no shortage of ambition in the sector. What the industry is facing now is the reality of getting projects built, getting approvals through, getting communities on board and making sure the economics stack up.
The conversation has moved well beyond ‘should we do this?’ to ‘how do we actually make it happen at scale?’
Early sessions highlighted the scale of the task ahead, particularly in New South Wales, where landfill capacity constraints and growing waste volumes are converging.
Speakers, including Arcadis and NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) representatives, reinforced the message: without coordinated action, parts of the state face a risk of running out of viable disposal options.
At the same time, presenters such as NSW EPA Chief Executive Officer Tony Chappel emphasised that the challenge cannot be reduced to a single issue. Circular economy reform, he argued, is no longer just about waste; it intersects with productivity, energy security, housing, infrastructure costs and public trust.
What stood out is how interconnected everything has become.
You can’t talk about infrastructure without talking about planning and approvals. You can’t talk about recycling without talking about markets. And you can’t talk about any of it without thinking about community trust.
This was reinforced through international comparisons. United Kingdom keynote Cathy Cook highlighted how policies such as extended producer responsibility and food organics mandates rely on more than regulation – they depend on clear definitions, funding certainty, infrastructure readiness and local delivery capability.
Investment is where the rubber meets the road for circular economy policy. While the environmental logic of resource recovery is clear, the financial logic depends on certainty.
That theme ran through the Resource Recovery Investment plenary, where panellists pointed to planning delays, policy uncertainty and offtake risk as ongoing barriers to funding large-scale projects.
Presentations from organisations including SOILCO, Cleanaway and Arcadis pointed to the same constraint: circular outcomes depend on physical capacity – facilities, networks, approvals and end markets.
Organics management, particularly food and garden organics (FOGO), was one of the defining themes of the conference. Sessions, including the “Here, Now and What’s Next” panel, highlighted that FOGO isn’t just a collection service; it’s a supply chain.
From Blacktown City Council’s large-scale rollout to contamination challenges highlighted by processors, the message was consistent: success depends on alignment across households, collection systems, processing infrastructure and end markets.
Internationally, Marco Ricci’s Italian case study demonstrated what mature systems can look like, with high participation and integrated organics infrastructure.
Regional perspectives added further depth. Speakers, including Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg, argued that if councils do not plan ahead for waste capacity, they lose control and communities pay the price.
There’s a real shift in how infrastructure is viewed. While for a long time, waste facilities were treated as something you try to push to the edge, now there’s a growing recognition that they’re essential services.
Alongside infrastructure, product stewardship emerged as another area of growing momentum. From batteries to plastics to whitegoods, presenters and industry panels demonstrated a shared recognition: responsibility for end-of-life materials cannot sit solely with councils.
At the same time, the sector is grappling with increasingly complex waste streams.
Lithium-ion batteries are a system-wide safety issue, while per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) mattresses and nappies continue to challenge traditional recovery pathways.
Data, while less visible, was a constant theme. The final-day workshop reinforced that inconsistent measurement and classification remain barriers to effective planning and investment.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure, and improving data quality isn’t just a compliance issue – it’s fundamental to planning, investment and trust.
Throughout the event, there was a noticeable shift in tone. Where previous years focused on identifying problems, Waste 2026 moved firmly into solution testing, signalling a maturing industry.
The industry has gone through big transitions before – kerbside recycling, landfill reform, and e-waste. What’s different now is that everything is happening at once. The question now is whether these diverse systems can come together to deliver it.
For more information, visit: www.coffswasteconference.com.au
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