Meeting Australia's urgent waste and recycling infrastructure needs

More resource recovery and recycling infrastructure is urgently required in Australia to achieve emissions reduction and landfill avoidance targets. There are multiple parties ready, willing and able to provide the technical solutions and fund the projects. So what is missing?

Mechanisms for infrastructure developers to access sufficient feedstock to underpin the investment.

Investors need long-term certainty about the raw materials feeding the facility. “Build it and it will come” is not a sufficient motto. The waste is out there - there’s no doubting that - but accessing it is more nuanced. This is one of the reasons why MSW (the smallest of the three streams) underpins waste infra projects in the form of long term council contracts. In fact C+I waste makes up the greatest proportion of waste generation. It also has the poorest recovery rate. This means there is huge opportunity for change if there is a willingness by government, industry and businesses to disrupt the status quo.

Demand for products made from recycled content.

A developer won't build a facility to make a product from waste for which there is no demand. Demand should be stimulated by mandatory regulatory requirements around minimum recycled content in product design and manufacture. Product suppliers also shouldn’t underestimate people power and the demands their shareholders will make around implementing more sustainable production practices and use of recycled content - don’t wait for the inevitable regulatory action; make the change now.

Licence and approvals processes for the infrastructure that truly reflect the urgency required.

At present it is too convoluted and takes too long to get all the approvals and licences required for resource recovery infrastructure (big and small).

Higher landfill levies or outright bans.

For so long as landfill is the cheaper option for management of waste, it will be the chosen option.

Solving these problems requires genuine collaboration. It is not the role of just one person or entity. But we need to get cracking.

Sphere Infrastructure Partners and I understand the complexity of the issues and the pathway to solutions. We would welcome the opportunity to work on them with you.