3 minute read
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
Everyone must take ownership
Rick Ralph says typical landfills require management for up to 30 years after a closure.
WASTE RECYCLING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION NORTHERN TERRITORY CEO RICK RALPH SHARES HIS VIEWS ON THE CURRENT STATE OF THE REGION’S WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RESOURCES INDUSTRY.
The Northern Territory’s (NT) Waste Management and Secondary Resources Industry provides waste collection processing, recycling and disposal infrastructure and services to the community.
It recovers valuable secondary resources generated during extraction and manufacturing processes of those wastes discarded by society, recovering where practical for recycling secondary products. It provides more than 744 local jobs, directly contributing more than $54 million in industry value add towards the Territory’s economy. There are more than 30 businesses operating, collecting more than 560,000 tonnes of waste and recyclables with a current diversion rate of about 35 per cent. Indirectly it provides an additional 625 jobs, contributing an additional $43 million per annum to the NT economy.
Recent headlines with respect to government’s investigations of a waste levy have certainly sparked community debate. These conversations are long overdue and must not be ring-fenced to a single subject.
Central to that conversation must be an acceptance by everyone that responsibility for waste and its future management reforms is not left singularly to governments or the waste management industry. We all share responsibility.
As debate occurs, a default position commonly taken is to argue ‘why we can’t do something’ rather than
acknowledge that change is inevitable. We all must take ownership and consider the world we all now enjoy and live in. We owe it to our families and our future generations to ask ourselves, ‘what will our legacy be in terms of the environment and its resource footprint we pass on?’
A common thread in all debate is that the cost of waste disposal is already too high, that the cost of waste management is too expensive and the distances too great to make resource recovery viable.
However, this is in comparison to what? In an era where protection of human health and environmental values, coupled with resource security and maximising resource efficiency, are the main objectives, we need to openly discuss the true cost of providing waste management services and the recovery of secondary materials.
We often have little regard for where the waste we generate is being disposed, who collects it and what legal framework underpins the whole waste system.
Arguments for improving resource recovery must be balanced with a mature conversation about creating systemic change for enhanced resource recovery and recycling services. This includes adopting a General Environment Duty principle that reminds us all to ensure that the waste we all generate and dispose of does not end up contributing to environmental harm.
A typical landfill requires management after it is closed for up to 30 years. This ensures the wastes contained do not pollute the receiving environment. Only after a genuine understanding by the community, and acceptance of the real costs of managing waste long-term, can we have meaningful conversation about moving waste materials up the ‘Waste Hierarchy’ from disposal to resource recovery.
Waste Recycling Industry Association Northern Territory CEO Rick Ralph.
Rick Ralph, Waste Recycling Industry Association Northern Territory CEO
The linear model for consumption assumes that the ‘waste sector’ ultimately picks up the responsibility for dealing with and treatment of the waste at end-of-life disposal. Industry advocates that the principles underpinning a ‘circular economy’ that the substitution of secondary materials in manufacturing processes must replace this outdated linear model.
The Northern Territory, due to its remoteness and sparse demographics, should be moving to conserve and secure all material flows as part of the future capital required to keep local industry operating in a sustainable manner.
This is a ‘circular materials economy model’. By keeping valuable secondary materials circulating in the economy, additional jobs are created and sustained and greater business opportunities, including social enterprise, can be realised. It creates enduring business investment.
For this to be a sustainable longterm model, the starting point must be having the right legislative and regulatory frameworks in place on which foundations can be built.
These must also be jointly coupled with internalised markets established to use the recycled products these new industries are meant to deliver from the government’s reforms, and an acceptance by everyone that we all have a part to play in delivering and sustaining a ‘circular economy’.
