Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Beyond the Bin with Gayle Sloan, CEO, WMRR - Why Australia Needs to Rethink Consumption, Production & Waste
157 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, industry leader Gayle Sloan joins Kate Dryden and Justin Frank for an unfiltered conversation about Australia's resource recovery challenges — and how real change starts before the bin. From the politics of standardised legislation to the uncomfortable truth about overconsumption, Gayle calls out Australia's global reputation as one of the most wasteful nations and explains why we need systemic shifts in production, design, and how we measure success.
Key Topics Covered:
- Why harmonising waste systems at the start matters
- The missing conversation on overproduction and hazardous materials
- Australia's consumption footprint — "5 planets compared to 2 in the UK"
- The circular economy gap: how extraction fuels emissions
- Batteries, fires, and the hidden risks in waste facilities
- Celebrating businesses leading on closed-loop systems
- Why carbon, materiality, and resilience are all connectedI
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Context
00:00:00
Speaker
Seriously, you can currently recycled PET bottles off the shelf at Coles. Do you know the difference? Not at all. But what you've done is you've saved a huge amount in emissions and energy production, right, by doing that. So we really need to celebrate those successes, I think, and help people help themselves. Because, you know, we know that over 80% of people want to do the right thing with their environment. They want to recycle and they want to recover, but recycling doesn't end at the bin. It actually starts at the bin. got buy back. Yeah, of course.
00:00:28
Speaker
We're recording this podcast today at the Executive Centre. Thank you for hosting us on Gadigal. Infrastructure plays a key part in keeping the soils, air and waterways clear and clean. We want to pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
00:00:46
Speaker
For the longest time, our waste has just gone away and we never had to think about it again. Today, there's no away left. Countries around the world are facing the challenge of replacing their aging infrastructure without interrupting critical services.
00:01:03
Speaker
Welcome to Loopholes, a podcast investigating breakdowns and breakthroughs in circular systems and infrastructure. We'll dig into what's broken, what's working, and how we can close the loop for good.
Energy from Waste: Debates and Challenges
00:01:17
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Justin Frank, circular economy and supply chain expert, and I'm delighted to introduce my co-host, the best strategic and infrastructure advisor in the business, Kate Dryden from Sphere Infrastructure. Back at it, back in the studio. Yeah, so too. What have you been up to since the last episode? oh You know, youre sitting twiddling my thumbs, I wish.
00:01:39
Speaker
Actually, I was um recently on the Gold Coast for an Energy from Waste conference or Waste to Energy, which is was talking about the residual waste stream. And I think there's you know lots of discussions that is energy from waste part of the circular economy, is that outside of the circular economy? I mean, it's about energy recovery and it's about... um From my perspective, it's well, if we really genuinely have tried all other avenues and we can't get ah higher and order a higher order use, then okay, there's a place for energy recovery. It's better than landfill. And so we were talking
00:02:16
Speaker
All about that. It's been an interesting bumpy road in this country to get energy from waste facilities. Social license. yeah um Social license, getting the investment conditions right. I mean, it's the same whether you're talking energy from waste infrastructure or other resource recovery infrastructure. You've got to get the conditions right for people to want to invest. And we just haven't quite done that. You've to get levies at the right level as well to keep things out of landfall. Correct.
00:02:42
Speaker
yeah yeah I don't think we have done everything that we could have to avoid energy from waste, but we are now at a point where when you've got governments writing policies and plans that are saying we're at crisis point and red bins aren't going to be collected in less than five years unless we do something.
00:02:58
Speaker
I think it shows that multiple different governments have been a bit asleep at the wheel. yeah so it's good that it's being raised. yeah I'm very concerned that we are just going to extend landfill life. We're just going to invest in energy from waste.
00:03:10
Speaker
Really the big sigh of relief that you know the bins are going to get collected but not invest in that circularity
Circularity and Technological Innovation
00:03:16
Speaker
piece. It has to happen concurrently and I'm sure we'll talk about that a lot in the episode. It was actually it was good to hear. There was um a lot of circularity talk even in in talking about some of the you know, energy from waste, it's it's largely about, you know, waste going into energy.
00:03:32
Speaker
um But there is quite a residual stream that people don't talk about. and um Yeah, the ash. Yeah. Reusing road base and things like that. Correct, correct. So that was, it was, you know, there is good chatter around circularity, even in an arguably, you know, linear way.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, and and again, we've we've talked about it before, where where it is is offsetting fossil fuel usage as the source load of energy. There's a great fabulous environmental business case for it. And again, I think there just needs to be more education around the level of investment in the scrubbers and the technology that actually do um you know capture a lot of the the noxious gases that can be produced in that process. But again, we're not here to just talk about No, what have you been up to? Have you been handling a lot of maggots?
00:04:22
Speaker
I have have done a few tours of of the GoTar units. yet we yeah We process food waste with larvae or maggots and robots. It's ah it's a la brilliant system to to turn food waste regeneratively into insect protein for animal feed and frass, which is maggot poo, ah which is a brilliant fertiliser. So not software as a service, but shit as a service. So yeah, they've been doing lots of that. And we're a startup going
Interview with Gail Sloan: Circular Economy Advocacy
00:04:53
Speaker
to scale up. So lots of fundraising activities.
00:04:56
Speaker
It's a tough market out there. yeah ah Macroeconomics and geopolitical tensions. so Will everyone just stop bombing each other and get along? That would be nice. Yeah. So, yeah, it's never an old day know in in where we are. But you've you've been at the Energy for Waste Conference. and There's a lot of companies up there, but we've also had the the industry body up there. So our guest during this episode is the CEO of WAMER, so the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia, Gail Sloan.
00:05:26
Speaker
ah Gail is not one to mince a word. She doesn't hold any punches. No. She's very outspoken, and that's what should say. She says it how it is, so I expect yeah we'll we'll hear that. One of the really strong female leaders in the industry that that's leading the charge um has very strong views on circularity and legislation.
00:05:44
Speaker
ah So really delighted to have her aboard. Gail Sloan doesn't just talk rubbish. She leads the national conversation on it. As CEO of Whammer, Gail is one of Australia's fiercest advocates for a circular economy that actually works.
00:06:00
Speaker
With a background in law and government and years spent inside councils and the recycling industry, she knows the system inside out. Since stepping into the top job in 2016, Gail's been relentless in pushing for the big picture reforms, national consistency of waste policy, smarter infrastructure planning, and a real conversation about what we consume and why.
00:06:25
Speaker
Whether calling out tokenistic bans or fighting for investment in serious recycling capacity, Gail's voice is one of the most respected and refreshingly direct in the sector.
00:06:38
Speaker
When Gail speaks, policymakers, industry leaders and the public pay attention because she's not afraid to say what others won't. If we want a waste system that delivers, it's time to start fiddling and start fixing.
00:06:52
Speaker
Gail, welcome and thank you for joining us today. for having me and for that intro. We've given everybody the bio, the official bio.
00:07:03
Speaker
Give us your version. Gosh, where do you begin? I feel like all roads led here, which is a really weird thing to say, I think. costume This podcast studio. podcast studio. There's four walls with you two locked down. um Thank God it's not COVID.
00:07:18
Speaker
I am a ah migrant from Scotland. My dad was a welder who worked actually in Wingfield. It was his first job when he arrived in Australia, which is the waste precinct, right, in Adelaide, which I do love because it's clever the way it's planned, whether it's intentional or otherwise.
00:07:35
Speaker
He's a boilermaker. So when I went and saw the East Rockingham boiler, i was like, oh, I understand this. I did law and arts and I had a real interest politics at uni.
00:07:46
Speaker
And ah moved to Sydney, i worked in attorney generals and then worked in government and police and and in attorney generals. I did legislation in parliament. So I did very diverse things like paedophile register and forensic.
00:08:02
Speaker
Services Act in Parliament. So i understand Parliament legislation and legislation policy always drove
Diversity and Opportunities in Waste Management
00:08:08
Speaker
me. a love good love good legislation. So that and then I went to councils actually, 12 years working for Frank Sartor, Lucy Turnbull, running waste contracts, writing waste contracts, doing procurement. Not very well according to most of my customers, which is good. Yeah. Dave Clancy used to say they were terrible. Good old clean away, bingo.
00:08:31
Speaker
And then had kids and life kind of fell apart for me. Had a very, had a addictive partner who lost his way and had to um start again, start again, again and applied for a job in the paper at Visi Recycling of all places. Like it was just so random. So I went from being a director in council's for 12 years working these crazy hours to a single mother and like just in a nano with a very absent father, partner. And, um yeah, the guy I applied for the job used to be one of my contractors and he was like, you can do my job, you're coming on.
00:09:09
Speaker
And then I was back in here and I was did – waste recycling CDS in New South Wales and then i two three years later VisiRule was really great to me and I got to see the system I loved it I just loved it I loved the smell of a Murph not so much paper mill in a 40 degree day but I just loved watching the bins come out and the product go out the front and what was going on there I was like oh my god this is like circularity we used to call it closed loop then because I'm old um And then I applied for another job in the paper because I was doing lots of stuff at Visi, but there wasn't a huge progression there for me, but it was great.
00:09:43
Speaker
And applied for this job thing. I'd be sitting in an office moving members around. had no idea. yeah I had like, I'd never done media in my life. I was like, I'd always be the advisor who told the minister or the Lord Mayor. And then you were like, what do you mean I'll be doing media interviews?
00:09:59
Speaker
What do you mean I'll do Q&A? Oh, okay. And off I went, and here I am. What a journey. So all roads lead to to waste. Everything policy, legislation, law, waste does. You don't hear that often, do you? love a bit of legislation.
00:10:13
Speaker
I it. And just for for those who aren't in the waste industry, couple of acronyms in there. CDS, Contained Deposit Scheme. MRFs, their Materials Recovery Facilities, where the yellow bin goes and gets sorted.
00:10:27
Speaker
You're woman in what everyone would traditionally think of as being a male dominated industry. What are your reflections? Like, is that is that true?
00:10:38
Speaker
What have been the changes in the 10 years or so that you've, well, no, i was going to say 10 years or so that you've been in the role at Whamma, but actually throughout, um whether at councils or at Visi, what's been your reflections in relation to diversity in the sector?
00:10:54
Speaker
ah There's no doubt that the industry has become more diverse, right? And I think that you know I strongly believe you can't be what you can't see. So, you know, the fact that we've got more females in...
00:11:06
Speaker
sort of visible roles helps. But I also think, and you know, I came through councils and street cleaning and parks, and those are not roles that women traditionally cover, putting aside the glass ceiling and having kids.
00:11:18
Speaker
Like who wants to go and sweep the streets, right? Who wants to pick up the bins? Like the night shift was always the most difficult shift to manage, right? But it was not a role that women wanted to do. So I think What I've tried to do here and ah guess in councils as well is demonstrate the diversity of roles.
00:11:35
Speaker
I think we don't do a great job generally at schools and I, you know, it was a long time since I went to school, but, you know, when you have your careers advisors, you just understand the gamut of it. So, you know, there's so many diverse roles out there that,
00:11:48
Speaker
people just don't know exists. Like I think about councils and I think about planning and urban design and architecture and all these different skill sets that people don't realise really exist out there. So like whilst I've had the fortune of being in this role, a lot of it's been about highlighting what exists, you know, the conversation, because we, particularly the waste sector, you take lots of different paths and local government was the same, right? There is no straight pathway into that place.
00:12:13
Speaker
So it's the opportunity to have those conversations, have those networks and just show the opportunities. Right. Yeah. um You know, I'm lucky. I'm pretty bolshy, people say. so I've never had a problem about putting myself out there.
00:12:26
Speaker
But I think it's really important that we help people who are not as bullshy to understand they can put themselves out there. ah love, i absolutely love a woman of waste, a woman of war breakfast because it's about, like, it's really interesting in a sort of pro-feminine way to go, you just got to have confidence, right? We've got to back ourselves, right? Because I love the constant anecdote we get. Like if a man kind of or ah certain types of person, I won't go male or female, goes, I can do two out of 10, I'll sell myself.
00:12:52
Speaker
Whereas I do find women and girls tend to go, I can only do eight of 10 and I won't. right? So for me, I strongly believe you can't be what you can't see. So i push myself out probably, like I've done it through my daughter's schools.
00:13:05
Speaker
You know, they love to talk about what mum does. She talks rubbish all the time is what they tell everyone. And every time War on Waste comes on, they're super embarrassed by me. um But, you know, I think it is diverse, but we also need to recognise some roles in our sector that people don't want to Right.
Sustainable Practices and Overcoming Overproduction
00:13:21
Speaker
So not everyone. I love, i love the really proactive campaigns. People like k Clean Away and Bingo and others have done about recruiting female drivers. yep I was amazed the first time I went to a bingo event, how many fathers' daughters were driving trucks. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:35
Speaker
And I think sometimes it's about just being prepared to have a go, right, and giving people the opportunity to have a go. Like I think the minor sector definitely jumped on women looked after their trucks better. There's a huge amount of research that says female drivers are on site, look after the cost of the the maintenance goes down.
00:13:51
Speaker
It's just opening our mind to think about how can we do things differently. Yeah, I agree. you know and But i do I do think and I strongly believe that if you want to have a senior role in our sector, our industry, you actually need to go into operations at some stage to have cred, right? So anyone who just thinks that staying corporate services and they'll climb to the top is kidding themselves. And I just think that's a reflection of the nature of the industry. got to understand all aspects. Like if I, when I was at local councils, I worked in every area other than planning.
00:14:18
Speaker
And you've you've got to move around, understand the system, you get the system thinking. Right. So I think it's me and I've always been that person was like, I just say yes to everything. Cause, and as we know, if you stay more than six months in the waste sector, you'll never leave it. So make the most, get amongst it. Yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
Okay. So switching gear a little bit, uh, you work in waste and circularity. What do you still throw in the bin that you feel uneasy about? Yeah, um well, I never throw batteries or e-waste in the bin, so I never throw that. But the the two things that get me are always um packaging and food.
00:14:53
Speaker
Food because i just hate waste and carbon and yeah stuff, and we don't as yet have a composting service at Kerr. But I really, like, my bins are pretty empty, I've got to say, other than my recyclables, right? Yeah.
00:15:07
Speaker
I really loathe chucking out anything. I pride myself on, I think this week I looked and I had two bags after a week. So I think that was pretty good in my red bin. But my yellow bin, because I have a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old and God, we love online shopping. um So there is a lot of cardboard in there. But I i would say that I am ah at least at sort of 98% recovery through my yellow bins. Nice.
00:15:30
Speaker
Because I know the seven things that go in there. But, yeah, they're the things that – food and packaging. Because I say no to as much packaging as I can. i really – I hate it. But obviously with certain food types, you can't avoid it, right?
00:15:43
Speaker
but But it's interesting, right? You've got a yellow bin. Where I live, I've got a blue bin for the cardboard and a yellow bin. How do we get that patchwork quilt of curbside standards harmonised and stuff?
00:15:56
Speaker
Well, i think we're probably down to less than 12 local areas that have got four bins with blue. Like I'm going to guess where you live ah because most actually have gone back to commingle, right? But ah yeah, it's very hard to harmonize the end when you don't harmonize the start. So it's really easy in my view.
00:16:15
Speaker
We can all go Australian standards, here's the bin. There is a challenge, obviously, depending on jurisdiction, to fund the bin because they're not cheap, right? $70, $80. funding that through this thing called the WASIP funding that you may remember that everyone used to, councils all used to get funding for to help support that. And we're seeing that now with the organics rollout, right? yeah So it's a real cost, right?
00:16:38
Speaker
But I think it's pretty straightforward to go three or four bins ah nationally, but we do need a funding source agency. So Gail, I know you're passionate about, what did you say, closed loop, circular economy. I mean, I don't really mind what we call it, but how do we go from being more limited?
00:16:58
Speaker
all starts at the beginning. It's consumption and production, right? And we just haven't in Australia at all really grasped that. You know, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as my granddad would say.
00:17:10
Speaker
um we put way too much material on the shelf or products on the shelf that can't be recovered because they've got hazardous material like PFAS in it, right? So until we start having a genuine conversation around consumption and production, overproduction,
00:17:24
Speaker
which Australia, I believe, is still quite a way away from. You know, I love Alan Kohler. He's one of my favourite journos, but I do not want to see any more slides on ABC about retail sales because that is the wrong thing to be celebrating. yeah We actually need to get back to the beginning and going, what are we producing?
00:17:39
Speaker
Do we need it? Do we need to own it? Could we share it? What systems are out there for repair and reuse? And start to engage the community and producers in what that looks like and how we do it, right? Because at the moment, like Australia is embarrassing. We're the second highest consumer globally. We consume five planets we heard last week compared with, say, two planets yeah in the UK.
00:17:59
Speaker
We just need to flip it and start looking at start, not the end. Why do you think that is? i mean, why are we one of the most wasteful nations? Why why are we so bad at being wasteful in Australia?
00:18:14
Speaker
um ah Richard Dennis is fabulous at this, right? And we had him at Circular Economy Conference last year. And I think ah we forget about the fact this is about economics and the management of scarce resources generally, globally, um That's well understood, but Australia, we're rich, right?
00:18:33
Speaker
We are the lucky country, exactly. So, you know, we grew up on the back of the sheep and we're resource rich. So we don't think so much about continuing to extract, even though we'll have it all the publications that will say 80% of the design issues are locked in the start.
00:18:47
Speaker
We know from the Circular Gap Report, about 70 to 80% of emissions come from extraction of natural material but we have not done a good job in australia at all from our leadership of linking carbon to materiality you know we put out last year's battery strategy and the csiro work on batteries like australia is the second highest producer globally of lithium we think given our position and what's happening in the world we think about how we could recirculate that yeah bring it back and make closed loop but we put out strategies that are at the start and not the end yeah yeah
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, oh, my gosh, we keep talking to people about how we mitigate carbon. We look at natural disasters, but then we never give them the tools, right? We don't talk about, okay, there's really straightforward things you can do. Yes, it's not easy. You will have to do change, but it's so worth it.
00:19:38
Speaker
We actually need to start talking about, you know, how we extract. Because I think it's always seen as being an additional cost to business. Whereas we know people like Apple and, you know, Katmandu and others, they've understood the brand awareness and the ability for the repeat customer by setting up the systems to support, yeah right?
00:19:56
Speaker
yeah So we actually need to start celebrating success and those businesses that are doing that sustainable method and model, right? Because you don't have to keep extracting virgin, right? One of the biggest ways we could in Australia pivot to both onshore resilience and carbon mitigation is by using our own local recycler. Like seriously, you can currently buy recycled PET bottles off the shelf at Coles.
00:20:20
Speaker
Do you know the difference? Not at all. But what you've done is you've saved a huge amount in emissions and energy production, right, by doing that. So we really need to celebrate those successes, I think, and help people help themselves because, you know, we know that over 80% of people want to do the right thing with the environment. They
Regulatory Needs and Waste Management Risks
00:20:38
Speaker
want to recycle they want to recover, but recycling doesn't end at the bin. It actually starts at the bin. You've got to buy it back.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's great. I mean, you've you've mentioned a couple of good examples there. Can you share an unsung story of waste in the resource recovery industry you wish more people knew about?
00:20:57
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to give you a bad story. Batteries, right? You know, we are currently being inundated in our sector with batteries, power packs, all these things that have been put on the market. We've gone from cable and e-waste to batteries in mobile phones and toys and shoes. Who knew those light-up shoes were powered? Oh, of course, if you thought about it. Yeah, of course, yeah.
00:21:17
Speaker
But we don't have a separate collection system for them. So people are thinking, what do I do? I'll just put them in the bin. yeah You know, we are having fires every day in facilities, in trucks that are causing huge risk.
00:21:32
Speaker
You know, we've lost Canberra Murph at 25 million on Boxing Day, plus plus. Cairns has seen another facility taken out, Holus Bolus.
00:21:43
Speaker
you know We are so close to having a death and a fatality. yeah So you know please, A, we've got to start thinking about what we're buying and ideally moving towards um products that we can pull the battery out because we do have B-cycle.
00:21:57
Speaker
But if you can't, we do have at least in New South Wales and South Australia is looking at some two separate collection points for these batteries Bunnings you can take back. But for me, it's the unsung risk or the challenge that's been created because it all seems like a great idea. You produce whatever you want. We've got no rules around sustainable design in Australia.
00:22:17
Speaker
Well, and then you add insurance, right? So if you think about these facilities that we lose, um not only is it that the ongoing service costs of redirecting, you know, so you can double the cost of Canberra, um but yeah, you can't insure the next facility.
00:22:32
Speaker
So that's a cost, right? yeah So we're getting to a point that our critical infrastructure is becoming even more critical. And so, I mean, people who really, as we say, there's lots of people who want to do the right thing but just don't actually know what that is.
00:22:47
Speaker
The clear message is separate your battery. So if you look at the B-Cycle website, they do have collection points nationally, but, again, it needs to be separated at source. So it comes back to consumption.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah. What are you buying? Can it be recovered? Can it be reused? Can it be repaired? We've actually just got to have these constant conversations. Can it be avoided? Right? Like, do I even need it? Could I lease it? You know, we've got to think differently about rather than just consume, consume, consume. yeah What do we need and how are managing that?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So where does circularity break down when it hits the real world? Well, in many places, I guess. I guess it's nice in theory and there's a lot of jargon around it.
00:23:26
Speaker
it's got to be economically viable, right? And our real challenge is there is a lot of stuff placed on market without any responsibility or accountability. And we have a system in Australia that is linear that just passed the risk to the next person in the chain, right?
00:23:40
Speaker
So unless we have some sort of financial accountability and it's going to be regulation, it has to be regulation. you love bit regulation. I love a bit of regulation, but it's really important, right? Because I think if you look at, you know, where Australia is at from a waste point of view, we're at 74 million tonnes generated last ah twenty twenty two twenty three and we're at about 66% recovery rate. We're still putting 20 million tonnes per annum every year into landfill.
00:24:03
Speaker
No wonder they're getting full. They're going to be full by 2030 if they don't get extended in Sydney. Well, they could, but they could also transport it because we don't have proximity principle in Australia, right? So we don't think about the system sinking.
00:24:15
Speaker
And should we be transporting it? No, we should be managing it close to generations. So we actually need to think about how do we design differently? So, you know, there is no obligation around sustainable design.
00:24:26
Speaker
yeah ah You have no obligation around making sure there's somewhere to go during life and at end of life in Australia, yeah right? So in Europe, you've got waste directives. It says you've got to where in theory it's going to end up, right? And you're responsible for the life cycle of it. So circularity is all great in theory, but we're not going to get there by sitting in a room with butcher's paper. yeah We actually need to get generators at the table having a conversation with us about these are the systems at scale that you can fit into, be it a material recovery facility or an organics facility.
00:24:58
Speaker
But in order to do that, you've actually got to design for this. yeah and And we're just not having enough conversation around design obligations, ah production obligations, right? And so until we do that, but we're not going to solve this.
00:25:11
Speaker
yeah No, and I think your point around the financial obligations being the only, or the incentives being the only way to achieve this, and how voluntary schemes might be nice in theory, but haven't actually worked in practice.
00:25:26
Speaker
And I think we don't look enough at data and evidence, right, or size and scale. So most schemes don't talk about size and scale. So let's talk about Red Circle, right? 490,000 tonnes, 490,000 tonnes, half a million tonnes of soft plastics placed on a market.
00:25:41
Speaker
They had a collection and processing capacity of, depending on who speak to, 9 and 12,000 tonnes. that That is like a pince of it. So, of course you know, in Australia, we're not good at talking about recycling at scale because we actually fall into the habit of it's technically recyclable.
00:25:58
Speaker
Everything is, right? Seriously, i could be Elle Macpherson technically, but I'm not, right? So it's like we have to actually start being really clear about what's placed on market. Where is it?
00:26:08
Speaker
How do we aggregate it? Is it designed? Like if you think about soft plastics, there's many different types of plastics and polymer in this. It's not even capable of being treated as one amount, right? So we need to get smarter, I think, around understanding what is out there and is it financially viable to do And the only way that we're really going to get change of that last sort of 20 million, because that's the difficult stuff, let's be real, yeah is if there's some accountability for it and financial um recognition of what it takes.
00:26:36
Speaker
yeah So we need to pivot. We absolutely need to pivot. And we we also need to talk to the community about, did you know that you're putting $2,000 of waste, for example, in your bin every year from food waste?
00:26:48
Speaker
If I helped you to think about how you could avoid that, we'd be the most favourite council in Australia, wouldn't you? Yeah. Like we wouldn't be arguing either that extra tonne at $160 going across the Weybridge. We'd be going, I am loaded, $2,000 a year. So we need to start talking avoidance yeah and how we can change behaviour habits and keep council sorry community healthier and richer, I guess. Yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
Just coming me back to your point on transport, which I think is a really good point, I just want to call out Gail and Wammer's involvement in being ah playing a fundamental part in getting a levy into Queensland.
00:27:23
Speaker
Back in the day, there was $143 plus for levying in New South Wales and a zero what landfill levy in Queensland, which led to a whole industry of trucking, detractable waste, thousands of kilometres up to Queensland ah for disposal in landfill, passing multiple disposal facilities purely for for profit motive.
00:27:47
Speaker
um Getting the landfill levy in there and really changing that was a really positive outcome and shows how an industry body can really make change, and political and policy change.
Design, Repair, and Reuse Culture
00:27:59
Speaker
um So you have a ah better outcome for the communities, better outcomes for road safety and and an all-around better outcome for the environment. So I really want to call that out. um And the irony now, because the differential right levy rates, we're getting Queensland waste back into remote New South Wales and Gunnedah, right? So it's just nuts, right? So you need to have, regular like my love of regulation, but it's that level playing field, right? So now you have Queensland ah recyclers going, hang on, I don't want that to cross the border. I want it come to me to be recycled, right? So we we that cross-border issue is a real challenge for us. Yeah.
00:28:38
Speaker
Okay, Gail, so if landfill was not available tomorrow, what would happen? Well, we'd probably be stockpiling at first instance, to be fair, because we wouldn't have a clue what to do.
00:28:50
Speaker
um You know, we should... B, putting what we can into energy recovery, which is really important for us. And, you know, we haven't on the East Coast really got our mind to that yet. We've seen one now operating in Western Australia.
00:29:06
Speaker
to my mind, it's so much better that we're doing energy recovery um rather than creating methane in landfills. And I think we also forget, right, and I remember when I first started in this role and didn't have really a clue about most things and probably still don't, but when someone explained to me like,
00:29:22
Speaker
an energy plant, ah a waste to energy plant is like a power plant. And at the end of the 30 years, you pack it up and you go, you don't get to do that with landfill. Right. I was, um I was in council land trying to work out how you could build netball courts on, on landfills. And it's like, yeah, I can't, right. You know, it's not going to work.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah. So we need to think about that. But ideally if there was no landfill tomorrow, we're going to see a lot more conversations around what are we designing? How can we extend life?
00:29:50
Speaker
Where's the opportunity to create more jobs in repair and share so that we're prolonging life, right? And we really haven't got our head to that. Like one of the things that's probably hit me in the last few years in this role is how much we've de-skilled around repair and like who can sew, know?
00:30:07
Speaker
like and we think that, and I was reading a strategy that will remain nameless, we seem to think that it's only going to be charities that are going to have repair shops. It's like, no, no, no. yeah yeah You know, the right to repair legislation and obligations around how can I make my product last longer?
00:30:22
Speaker
You know, and we really haven't, we see Uber and Airbnb as like disruptors, but we haven't understood them as circularity as well. It's a share and reuse model. Absolutely. It's like a pallet Correct, yeah correct. And like we use our car one in seven of its life, right? So the other six, sevens is a great opportunity. and then we forget that's materials that have been extracted that don't need to be extracted or we can actually multiply the use of it. So, you know, we've had opportunities in Australia, but we've never quite parlayed them into into these conversations.
00:30:53
Speaker
last So my favourite EFW presenter was... a green called Peter Plushki who came out a number of years ago who talked about systems thinking and about the fact that, you know, and I know it's Nirvana and we're not quite there, but from a leadership point of view, government's thinking about material goes on market and what are the steps in the hierarchy it goes through to try and prolong life right down to the minivan that's got a dishwasher in it at events to be able reuse that the council support right so to prolong life minimize resource extraction and then eventually end of life it may have to go somewhere but you you know triple the life cycle because you've thought of the system yeah we don't think in systems
00:31:34
Speaker
Just staying on energy from waste for a moment, we've talked about it before and I'm sure we'll talk about it again. i can see their place as a transition to a circular economy, especially as a behind the meter solution for an energy hungry offtaker, ah mitigating the use of fossil fuels like natural gas or coal power.
00:31:53
Speaker
I can see the environmental benefit of doing that for hard to recycle residual waste items. I suppose my concern is that if we're not careful, the policymakers will spend their time on extending landfill life, expediting pathways for energy from waste.
00:32:11
Speaker
But what we really have to do is make sure that the circular infrastructure is getting the same amount of focus. It needs to be done concurrently ah so that we can actually transition away from landfill and linear economies to more circular economies where we take, make and reuse ah the inputs rather than just really focusing on these these linear technologies.
00:32:32
Speaker
I think we should shift our thinking to being a bit imaginative. Yeah, go for it. um You know, because we could dwell in all of the problems, ah the grenades in our waste. um What's an idea that sounds insane now but will be absolutely business as usual in 20 years' time?
00:32:53
Speaker
I think um service as a model, right? And I don't actually think it's an old thing because I thinking. No, that's happening now. Yeah. It's on a small scale. It used to happen huge because when we came to Australia, we paid for, so 1982, Thatcher came to power and we just got out of there, right? And we rented everything from radio rentals.
00:33:13
Speaker
Everything, our house was radio rentals, right? And everyone did. yeah You went and our furniture, all our white goods were radio rentals, right? And there was no stigma associated with it, but that's what you did. And then you handed it back and all they came and repaired it and you paid a weekly fee.
00:33:27
Speaker
if We don't do that anymore, right? Yeah, what happened? It just got too cheap. they did that That got more expensive and it was cheap and it just fired and threw it away. Yeah, I just think we moved down consumption and fads and the latest and greatest things, you know, and I think we brought our furniture from Australia, from Scotland. Could you imagine now? We just wouldn't. We'd just like go get a new set, right? So we went to this, um we need it all. We need it now. We need it special.
00:33:49
Speaker
We go shopping and we get way too much gratification. I'm guilty of this. ah from ah the high of shopping right we don't value we don't value stuff the same way we don't repair so for me it's that it's fascinating to watch services model come back and UK really drive it a lot of leasing around tires France is doing the same so I think I think services as a model will change I think it'll be accepted to have on the the shelf when you buy something the true life cycle costs of the material right but So if I'm buying this e-waste or what will ultimately be e-waste and this has got a repair charge and ah a lifespan in it and an end of waste charge in the upfront so I can inform my decision, I think that'll be normal, right? Like the health style racing for food, funnate racing.
00:34:36
Speaker
That too, but also costs. So mine was standing in France. They started a number of years ago with the full life cycle cost of the item. yeah So when you're buying it, you actually understand impact as well. Yeah, yeah.
00:34:49
Speaker
What's the one thing that every individual should be doing, everyone at home, that would make a huge difference to the move towards a circular economy?
Consumer Choices and Circular Economy Advocacy
00:34:57
Speaker
think you are like the consumption pace for me is the key bit. So it's understanding what you're buying.
00:35:03
Speaker
Is it designed for circularity? And that's not some ethereal thing like can it be repaired, can it be reused, can it be shared? you know Has it got an end-of-life home? um It's just thinking about our consumption choices.
00:35:16
Speaker
is the key. Like we do have a national target of 10% reduction in waste by 2030. We that target in 2018. You know, last I checked, we now need to hit 20% in the next five years because we've just kept on our trajectory of growth, right? So we need to change the conversation.
00:35:35
Speaker
and just think about what we're buying and how we're using and do we really need it can you say no can you avoid so it's it's a pivot right and that's not to say we don't want waste oh my god we want the material at the end of life but we want the right material that we can be that we can recover and reuse right you know i never thought of myself as a greenie until i started this job i just went oh my god like We can't cover so much of that stuff. It's not possible, right?
00:36:00
Speaker
We will always need landfill to a point because we are going to have materials that are out there circulating. And even like asbestos that we banned 20, 30 years ago, it's still in circulation, right? I reckon it's time for our rapid fire. rapid fire What's the one waste myth you wish people would just stop believing?
00:36:21
Speaker
That we don't recycle in Australia. Back to the comment about, you know, we're sending everything offshore. It was 3.2 million tonnes and, you know, a lot of that was steel that we just can't do here. So it was about a million tonnes of paper No glass, right? I think it was 18,000 tonnes they worked had gone offshore.
00:36:38
Speaker
But we don't value traditionally remanufacturing in Australia and we don't buy back, right? So, you know, that number is now lower. I think it's one and a bit million tonnes it's going offshore. We would desperately love to recover and recycle everything in Australia, but please, please buy back.
00:36:54
Speaker
Gail, I want you to believe that you're Prime Minister just for one day, which is hard to imagine because I think that you'd be backing a great Prime Minister for more than a day. But if you had just one day, what circular economy policy will do fast track?
00:37:13
Speaker
Sustainable design. So I would like have a directives model, the EU directives model, and there would be positive obligations on making safe products and putting on shelf. And if you can't, because you have to, for example, ah have a fire retardant in there to make it safe, then it would be absolutely the waste directives approach of the container labelling.
00:37:33
Speaker
ah You in You cannot put PFAS on the shelf in Europe without a label saying it's got PFAS on it. what We don't even know. my face is full of it, right? And I know that. I'm informed. But I don't know I'm buying PFAS, right? And we're not good at having a conversation that PFAS is okay and there is safe labels, right? where It's just hysteria.
00:37:51
Speaker
So I think we actually owe the consumers to be more transparent about what we're doing and what they're buying. um And the directives really prefer pushes that home, right? Like it's got to be safe. It's got to have a pathway end of life and you are accountable as a generator for it.
00:38:06
Speaker
Only one. I could go on. You know I could. I just feel like if you were in there for a day, you would be like smashing out all of the money. I'd do everything. Here's a bill I prepared earlier. Exactly. You've got it already, I'm sure. Yeah, I have. I've got my five-point plan.
00:38:20
Speaker
I think I wrote that article once. and What's the worst green, quote-unquote, product market? Oh, there's so many. i just come back to the Pringles, right? Sorry, Pringles. I was trying not to mention a brand, but you know Pringles just for me personifies it. It's got three or four different material types in there and how on earth are we supposed to recover it, right?
00:38:40
Speaker
So it's just packaging is something that touches and feel, that people touch and feel. So you know we have to keep it simple because we can only put it in one bale and go to one location.
00:38:50
Speaker
We can't separate it. So, you know, anyone who tells you that multi-layered packaging is recyclable at scale, you've got to ask them where. Show me. Show me the money, basically.
00:39:03
Speaker
ah Is there anything that you really wanted to make sure that we spoke about today? I think markets, right? Like I think people don't necessarily get, we touched on ah the buying back, right? So it's not as simple as just rolling out kit.
00:39:19
Speaker
yeah It's a complex system that we operate in and you've got to have a business case for what comes in and what goes out. So we really need to get people to understand the whole circularity bit sounds great.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yes, you can make aluminium cans back into aluminium cans. But it's expensive, right? But if we want to do the right thing and reduce emissions, which we do want to, ah we have to use less, make it last longer, and then use recycled, right? So it it is simple and chunkable, but we need to start setting ourselves up for success. Because if we can't buy it back, let's go back to soft plastics, 490,000 tons placed on the market.
00:39:57
Speaker
That's an awful lot of infrastructure in theory. um my sort of plastics facilities are about 20 to 30,000 So talking about 25 facilities nationally.
Challenges and Transitional Solutions in Waste Management
00:40:08
Speaker
Who's going to fund that, right? And then the only way that's going to be funded is if there's market demand and market pool, right? So it's circular.
00:40:15
Speaker
but That is the circle, right? where That's the loop we're trying to close. and Probably the saddest one for me was I did a 7.30 report ah two years ago, right, and we were talking about plastics and plastics recovery.
00:40:27
Speaker
um And we highlighted people like Plastic Forest and others who were actually trying to do this work. And you genuinely would have thought the day after they would get calls. We'll buy it.
00:40:38
Speaker
Phone didn't ring. So what we see is, and and also because we work in a system, right, people don't understand that we we tend to get really poor policy in Australia. We tend to get myopic policy. So we'll just look at single-use plastics. So we'll eliminate single-use plastics and we'll move everyone to compostable that eliminates plastic that has PFAS, which creates a whole other issue with beneficial reuse.
00:41:02
Speaker
Instead of going, actually, the opportunity was to move to avoidance or reuse, right? We're not good at the hierarchy piece. But what we also did with export bans is we suddenly created a whole pile of plastics that was easier to recover than the other soft plastics.
00:41:17
Speaker
And that meant it was even harder, right? So we've only got finite capacity because we've got limited market. So we have to regulate to buy back or take back. 100%. Thank you. Thank you very, very much, Gail, for all your insights. I feel like we've learned a huge amount in in ah in a short period time.
00:41:37
Speaker
Some very strong opinions very, very sensible. very very sensitive All right, time to wrap it up. Always good speaking to Gail.
00:41:47
Speaker
I always love her passion and, I mean, she's just got a knowledge of the sector that um think very few people do and she's been able to impart and make...
00:42:00
Speaker
I guess, make others hear about. And so I always, i think, appreciate that about her. She spoke about the benefit in having repeat customers if they're coming back um for um end of life service.
00:42:15
Speaker
She spoke about financial accountability. i think that sort of messaging was quite beneficial. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the eco design, the sustainable design piece came through ah very loud and clear and that it actually needs legislation but also the the that's the input to to the value chain but the off take right not really explaining that there needs to be business case for recycling infrastructure or reuse infrastructure to be built and she made that very loud and clear is it is really important And I think she's touched on it quite a lot of times that we are a very wasteful nation. We consume far too much. We don't really think about the problems that it causes from a carbon footprint or from ah a life cycle perspective. I think she touched that really, really well.
00:43:01
Speaker
The conversation around landfills being a useful node, you know, that is that can be controversial in some people's eyes, but you some really good case studies as to why and where they do fit in a network or waste network.
00:43:13
Speaker
energy from waste as a transition economy, although have linear infrastructure as the main solution to the crisis. So I still feel that we need policymakers to not just solve the immediate crisis in front of us, but to get off the drug and find way to fund and re you know use levy funds. I know it's my soapbox moment, but invest in market failures to put the infrastructure in there whilst concurrently creating that pool demand through procurement policies, sustainable reuse policies ah that make a business case for it so that we can ah see this circularity start happen. It can be done. It's yeah done in other countries.
00:43:56
Speaker
We've been a bit shit house at it in Australia, for want of a better phrase. And I think Gail's really highlighted that there is no silver bullet here. You need the love of legislation, you know good legislation, good policy, good planning, good eco design, and then the value chain and that pool demand for recycled products that we can all do better. We can all buy more recycled stuff.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I thought she also say spoke earlier on about celebrating success and, um, i I'm always a big fan of that. I don't think I do it well. I don't think we as a society do it well.
00:44:33
Speaker
But also that ability to really pull out what has been done well and what then needs to be done on a larger scale. The reason why ah landfill and energy from waste are grasped burst up in ah as a as a solution in a crisis is it's the easiest, it's the biggest bang for buck, you know, it's the biggest waste stream. And so, right, solve solve that, then, you know, who with the the crisis is solved. But, I mean, what that's actually over, um well, forgetting or or just glossing over is that it's the biggest waste stream because there aren't the solutions that have been presented to correct to be able to make it a smaller waste stream. Correct. And that's the point. If we just focus on extending landfill life, we just focus on creating energy for waste plants, we're never going to solve for circularity. We're always going to be linear. And there's a necessity for it because we're not going to solve all these circular circularity challenges in the timeframe that we've got to avoid a crisis. So they have to be be invested in.
00:45:37
Speaker
But we have to concurrently do it, otherwise we just... ne i just feel with an eight-year-old boy, I really, really want at the end of my career to say I've actually achieved something for him and for his generation your kid's generation that they can actually see a pathway through it.
00:45:55
Speaker
It does make my blood boil a little bit. Yeah, totally agree, I think. That's why we're talking about these tough things so that we're not just saying it's up to you. up to your eight-year-old son. It's up to my 14, 12-year-olds. No, actually. We've got to do it. We're the generation have continued to make it worse. yeah I think the other piece is coming loud and clear. Gail's mentioned it again. It's almost like a public conversation.
00:46:21
Speaker
health warning now, stop putting batteries in the bin. yeah Please, you're just going to make it worse. If you put batteries in the bin, sooner or later, they're going to set fire to a truck or some of the critical infrastructure that we have in place.
00:46:34
Speaker
Find your local recycling facility for batteries. store them in a tub so that you can take them out in in one. Just don't just be really thoughtful about what you're putting in the bin. Lithium batteries in particular, they are omnipresent products from toys to gardening tools and everything in between. So yeah, be mindful of what you're sticking the bin.
00:46:55
Speaker
Agree. All right. Well, a call out to everyone. um Send in your requests so you want to hear, people you want to hear, subject matters you want to hear. We read your reviews. And so, yeah, we're all ears.
00:47:08
Speaker
But thanks for listening. Yeah. And any acronyms that we didn't explain, put them in the comments and we will more than happily reply to the comments on what acronyms stand for. Definitely.
00:47:19
Speaker
Thanks, Kate. See you next time. See you soon.