By Barry Healy
SYDNEY — Recycling of waste by local NSW councils is in danger of collapse and many councils are threatening to stop collections within weeks, according to the Local Government Recycling Co-operative.
The packaging industry has refused to contribute the funds needed to support recycling programs, and demands have been placed on both state and federal governments for greater financial and legislative support.
At a meeting on March 10, the co-operative called on the state government to release funds from disposal charges at its waste facilities to support recycling. It also demanded that the federal government expedite legislation compelling industry to take up its full responsibilities regarding recycling.
It resolved that if the industry, and state and federal governments do not meet its demands by April 10, local meetings of residents would be convened to explain why recycling collections are stopping.
Many of the items collected at the kerbside are exported and economic conditions in Asia have affected prices. For example, the buy-back price of newsprint, the staple of the kerbside system, has dropped by half in the last two years to less than $40 a tonne.
In a worst case scenario, the price of recycled paper may drop to minus $65 a tonne in the next financial year (i.e., councils will have to pay $65 a tonne to paper recyclers to take it away).
Similar situations apply to most other products. The market collapse means that the 43 Sydney councils are subsidising recycling by $29 million this financial year, and this subsidy will grow to at least $38 million next year.
Nationally, the cost of recycling collection is estimated at $175 million, according to the February edition of Environment Business. The return on sale of these items is $75 million. Ratepayers, through their councils, make up the shortfall.
Peter Woods, president of the NSW Local Government Association, warned that the situation is growing more critical daily. "Industry must provide a fair return to councils and communities for commodities collected and diverted from the mixed waste stream", he said.
At the last meeting of the Australian Kerbside Recycling Alliance, which draws together local government and industry representatives, the packaging industry offered to put in $5 million over five years towards recycling. An industry negotiator is reported to have said that the industry would "not be prepared to throw buckets of money into a black hole", a reference to the gap between the costs and returns of kerbside recycling.
Democratic Socialist spokesperson Peter Boyle told Green Left the crisis shows the free enterprise system cannot be trusted to clean up the environment crisis. "Big business has created this crisis, it should pay for it", Boyle said.
"The governments know there is a waste crisis. As of 1989, the federal government knew there was only 12 years' waste disposal capacity left in the whole of Australia. In 1992, the Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency produced a strategy to reduce the amount of waste going to land fill by 50% of the 1990 figure, but little has been done.
"Governments have let their big business mates get away with socialising the costs of recycling, through council rates, while privatising the profits.
The first step in solving the waste crisis, Boyle said, would be to force manufacturers to stop producing wasteful packaging and make them responsible for recycling what they produce.