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Securing greenhouse gains for SA
by Vaughan Levitzke, Chief Executive, Zero Waste SA. In May Premier Rann released Tackling Climate Change: South Australia's Greenhouse Strategy 2007-2020. This is a comprehensive and detailed strategy, which sets out specific goals and activities for South Australia to effectively address climate change. However, I still feel that there is a need to remind people of the importance of embodied energy in products and waste streams. Recycling aluminium saves 96% of the energy taken to produce new aluminium. For paper the saving is 40%. The issue for us though is where those savings are realised and who is the beneficiary. The local waste and recycling sector has helped reduce our carbon footprint through landfill gas extraction and subsequent electricity generation, and in the use of fuels such as bio-diesel in collection vehicles. We also have construction and demolition recycling happening locally. However, much of our packaging waste is currently recycled interstate or overseas to China. Zero Waste SA needs to develop further opportunities for local industry to use these materials. Of course, China’s much lower labour costs will have to be overcome and to do that we need better technology, better systems and new innovative products to ensure we realise the greenhouse gains locally for South Australia. In 2005, recycling reduced emissions by 1.15m tonnes of CO2. That is the equivalent to 267,046 cars off the road for a year. Top 10 contributors: – steel: 414,000 tonnes CO2 Reference: Recycling Activity in South Australia 2004-05, Hyder 2006: The report Tackling Climate Change: South Australia's Greenhouse Strategy 2007-2020 is at http://www.climatechange.sa.gov.au/
Max Harvey starts with WMAA After 25 years working within government to help improve this state’s waste processes, Max Harvey has taken up a new role as President of the South Australian branch of the Waste Management Association (WMAA) of Australia. Max accepted the voluntary role after retiring from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), and importantly Max doesn’t agree with suggestions that he’s in any way “changed sides”. “Obviously, I now have to advocate on behalf of the waste industry but the goals of government and industry are generally well aligned and while there will always be discussions about the details I think most people agree on what’s important,” he said. A former officer in the Australian Army, Max joined South Australia’s Waste Management Commission in 1982 where he began managing hazardous waste programs. He moved across to the EPA when it was formed in 1995 and has held a number of senior roles there including Operations Manager and, most recently, Director of Regulation and Compliance. Max takes up his new role with enormous industry knowledge, particularly on the regulatory side, along with a balanced and neutral approach to the issues as he sees them. “The industry is going through considerable change,” he said. “I think that will continue.” “We have moved from simple disposal to recycling and reuse, and now the debate centres on just what is waste… when does waste become a new product? “I think there’s also going to be a lot of focus on the Waste Levy and the potential to use that money on improving waste infrastructure and reducing our environmental impact as an industry.” It’s a long way from Max’s early days when “solvents were simply poured in a hole in the ground”. “We’ve certainly come a long way and I think all parties – government, agencies and the waste companies – are willing to continue to work together and aim for world’s best practice and Zero Waste SA has a leading role to play.” Stop press: Waste Management Association of Australia (SA Branch) members can hear about Zero Waste SA’s business priorities and programs for the new financial year at a breakfast session planned for late July – details are being confirmed.
Small SMEs targeted for The long-term sustainability of SMEs in Adelaide’s northern suburbs is set to improve, thanks to a new and innovative scheme involving Zero Waste SA. The Adelaide Sustainable 1000 project will initially target 100 small- and medium-sized enterprises employing less than 20 people. Through auditing, workshops and one-on-one consultation, the project aims to reduce the environmental impact of the businesses, while at the same time achieving cost savings, improving business viability, and strengthening networks. Zero Waste SA’s involvement is linked to the Waste Strategy target of increasing the recovery and re-use of commercial and industrial waste materials by 30% by 2010. It is proposed that Village Green Environmental Services will manage the project through its Sustainable Business Management Program, which addresses energy conservation, water consumption and quality, waste management, transport and the use of chemicals. A steering committee will oversee the pilot project with representatives from the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, the Department of Trade and Economic Development, the University of South Australia, the Environmental Protection Authority, Zero Waste SA, the Innovation and Economic Opportunities Group, and the cities of Salisbury and Playford.
Government shops for sustainability In an important development, Zero Waste SA has had the opportunity to discuss issues of sustainable purchasing and product lifecycles with State Government procurement officers. The presentation was made as part of the State Procurement Board’s current professional development program. “The fact that the Board allocated an entire seminar to sustainable procurement is very encouraging in itself,” said Ian Harvey, Zero Waste SA’s Manager Strategy and Programs, who made the presentation with Greg Rowberry from the Department of Premier and Cabinet. “It’s vital that procurement officers are aware that there is a waste component issue with everything they buy, and that it is better to try to solve these problems before you buy then afterwards,” Ian said. For example, the State Government purchases around 20,000 PCs every year, and we need to have environmentally responsible processes in place to ensure 'highest and best use' of these resources in accordance with the waste hierarchy. This includes: - reuse options that extend the useful life of these products by either refurbishing them for reuse somewhere else within government or the wider community; - recycling options that ensure components and materials are recovered for recycling; and - responsible end-of-life disposal options where reuse and recycling options have been exhausted. Take back schemes - which are commonplace in Europe - can facilitate these outcomes and need to be a key part of government procurement specifications alongside value for money and fit-for-purpose requirements. “The government’s purchasing power can be used not only to leverage government policy objectives in relation to greenhouse, water and waste, but also to encourage suppliers to establish sustainable practices and products which would then be available to all other customers.” “At the moment government does include some aspects of sustainability in some of its purchasing decisions, so the next step is to see this spread across the board and embedded into the core business of procurement,” Ian said.
A new collaborative selection process has been used by Zero Waste SA to allocate Regional Implementation Grants worth nearly $500,000. The new process is designed to help ensure the best decisions are made, by increasing transparency and including industry expertise. “For the first time we included regional assessment panels into the process,” said Fiona Jenkins, Zero Waste SA’s Program Manager for Local Government. These panels received all the grant applications from their region, and had to select the most worthy projects which were then forwarded to a multi-disciplinary task force and the Zero Waste SA Board, which made the final decision on funding. “After the Board made its decisions I then returned to each regional contact and explained why some projects received money and others didn’t,” Fiona said. “It works because the regional panels have the expertise to know what the priorities are in their area and what will best work.” The effectiveness of the process was further boosted with the involvement of private industry professionals, who were able to provide detailed input regarding the economic feasibility of the submissions. The Regional Implementation Grants were awarded to: City of Whyalla for the Eastern Eyre Waste Management Group Wattle Range Council DC Yankalilla Kingston DC Kingston Transfer Station Finding Workable Solutions Inc Yorketown Progress Association Sort and Save Shed Waikerie Primary School
Councils join for giant
Three suburban councils have joined with Zero Waste SA to hold what could be the largest hazardous waste collection of its kind in South Australia. The West Torrens, Holdfast Bay and Marion city councils will all be urging their residents to take part in the collection on Saturday 18 August. “These three councils are operating together on a regional basis across a number of issues, so when we started talking to Holdfast Bay about organising a hazardous waste collection day it was quickly suggested that we could expand our plans to a regional level as well,” said Colleen Dobson Zero Waste’s Program Manager for Hazardous Waste. It is estimated 1,200 cars could attend the site to drop off some 35 tonnes of hazardous waste with lead batteries, paint, oil, garden chemicals and solvents being the most common items. Zero Waste SA plans to have all the hazardous waste removed from the site for safe disposal within 24 hours. “We are doing a lot of work at the moment to ensure everything runs smoothly so people will be able to be in and out as quickly as possible. “Solo Resource Recovery have donated the site and are providing staff to assist on the day, so they should certainly be congratulated,” Colleen said. The collection will take place on: Saturday 18 August 2007 For details on how the collection will work, what will be collected and the best way to transport it, please visit www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au/prog_house.php
HK targets plastic bags Hong Kong could soon join Denmark and Ireland as one of the few places to tax plastic bag consumption. A tax of HK50 cents per bag is being considered (about 10 cents Australian). Initially larger retailers of foodstuffs and cosmetics – Hong Kong’s biggest chains – will be targeted, while small shops will be exempt. The aim is to cut Hong Kong’s plastic bag usage by some 50% to a billion a year. Shops would be required to register, keep appropriate records and collect the levy which even with lower usage levels would still amount to some HK$200 million a year. Public consultation on the proposal is now underway. Meanwhile, South Australia continues to lead the push for a national ban on single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags, helping recently to secure unanimous agreement among the States to work towards a national regulatory approach. Nationally, options under consideration include a ban and a charge on single-use plastic bags.
Local government cuts waste to landfill
Great results are starting to appear from the $7.5 million in grants Zero Waste SA has awarded to councils over the past two years to help them reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. These grants have provided upgraded kerbside recycling systems, regional infrastructure programs, regional waste management planning and household hazardous waste collection. For example, the City of Holdfast Bay is reaping the rewards of an upgraded kerbside collection system for which Zero Waste SA provided $144,000. Holdfast Bay monitored the waste collected in its high-performance three bin system in March this year and has compared it to March 2006 when its old system was in place… with some startling results. Last year 1,142 tonnes of waste was sent to landfill compared with just 577 tonnes this year, a reduction of 50%. Last year, 162 tonnes of recycling were collected while this year 278 tonnes were gathered via the new 250 litre wheelie bin, which is an increase of 72%. In addition, 222 tonnes of green waste were collected this year which would have been sent straight to landfill in 2006. “This is an outstanding outcome, particularly given that the figures are for the first weeks of the new system when, it can be reasonably assumed, not all ratepayers were fully educated about the system”, said Zero Waste SA’s Chief Executive Vaughan Levitzke. Overall, half of all South Australia households have had their kerbside recycling upgraded under Zero Waste SA’s Kerbside Performance Incentives program. More than half of all households in South Australia have had their kerbside recycling upgraded under Zero Waste’s SA’s Kerbside Performance Incentives program. Councils have introduced three bin systems leading to an increase in recycling from 25% to 50% in three years with a target of 75% by 2010 through introducing food waste collection. With more councils installing three bin systems, recycling has increased from 25% to 50% in three years with a target of 75% by 2010 through the introduction of food waste collection.
Presentation on Sustainability Charter Zero Waste SA’s Sharon Ede has made a presentation to Federal politicians concerning a proposed Sustainability Charter for Australia. The Charter was one of the recommendations from the Federal Government’s 2005 Inquiry into Sustainable Cities(1). The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage is inquiring into key elements of the proposed Charter(2), particularly the built environment, water, energy, transport and the ecological footprint. “I prepared a submission for the Committee on the built environment and ecological footprint aspects and, along with authors of other submissions, I was invited to a roundtable in Canberra to discuss it in greater depth,” said Sharon, Zero Waste SA’s Greening of Government Operations Project Officer. “It is my personal belief that if we are going to introduce a Sustainability Charter then we have to do two things which are fundamental,” Sharon said. “We have to be specific about what we mean by ‘sustainability’ - we need to live within the ecological limits of the one planet we have. Globally, we cannot indefinitely sustain the use of more resources than nature can provide. “The analogy is a bank account. We can live off the interest for ever but if we spend more than that, we dig into our assets and start eating into nature’s capital – at this point we move into ecological overshoot.” Sharon’s second point was that in addition to being specific about sustainability (ie. avoiding overshoot), we need ways to measure our use of nature, such as the ecological footprint, which is the bioproductive space on the planet needed to provide the resources used by human beings (eg. crop land for food, fibre; forest land for wood and paper products; pasture land for growing meat, hides, milk; C02 space for sequestering carbon). “This is a high level indicator which is based on biophysical data, and therefore captures information about our use of resources which cannot be sourced through economic analysis. “This planet is only so big, it can only produce so much. We need to reduce the ecological footprint of most of our activities.” Zero Waste SA, a partner organisation of the Global Footprint Network(3) which maintains National Footprint Accounts, provided financial assistance to help Sharon travel to Canberra for the roundtable meeting. (1) www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/environ/cities/report.htm
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| Max moves to WMAA. “We’ve certainly come a long way and I think all parties are willing to continue to work together and aim for world’s best practice..." |
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| Securing greenhouse gains for SA |
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| New recycling depot - better already |
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| Government shops for sustainability | |||||||||||
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| Collaborative approach to regional grants |
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| Councils join for giant hazardous waste collection |
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| Local government cuts waste to landfill |
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