Barry Healy
PM John Howard's government is using the cover of a Productivity Commission inquiry into waste production in Australia to downgrade recycling and revitalise the landfill industry.
Treasurer Peter Costello announced the Waste Generation and Resource Efficiency in Australia inquiry in October 2005. The terms of reference suggested that it might investigate maximising resource recovery — the reduce, reuse, recycle approach that Australians have grown used to.
However, the commission's discussion paper, released in December shows that the big landfill companies have already had a say in the matter behind the scenes. "Economically efficient landfill" is now on the agenda.
About 60% of Australia's waste — 20 million tonnes a year — goes to landfill. Up to another 14 million tonnes is captured in recovery activities such as kerbside recycling, repossessing of building materials and garden composting.
For the big landfill operators, what currently goes to recycling is potential profit — if they can get their hands on it.
The ACT, Victorian, South Australian and Western Australian governments have all adopted the target of zero waste going to landfill. That means influencing business behaviour "upstream" from waste generation, including extended producer responsibility.
Landfill operators see these ideas as a threat and their big business friends have stepped in to support them.
The bottom line for the government's business mates in the debate is cost, calculated as crudely as possible. The national landfill division of the Waste Management Association of Australia estimates that a "best practice" landfill disposes of waste at $50 per tonne, with all costs accounted for.
Advanced waste recovery costs $100 to $150 per tonne, they say. This avoids looking at the opportunity cost of lost resources going to landfill.
The Australian Council of Recyclers estimates the average "eco service" benefit of recovering one tonne of mixed waste from landfill is $194 per tonne. Estimations of the annual opportunity cost of current landfill practices is $1.5 billion.
The Business Roundtable on Sustainable Development's submission to the Productivity Commission opposes demanding anything from business in improving its waste production. Public waste management has no role in influencing upstream business activities as "these interventions have the potential to inflict significant costs on the economy and hinder the efforts of business to maximise resource efficiency", the BRSD argues.
The BRSD is headed by the Westpac chairperson Leon Davis and includes the heads of Rio Tinto, Dupont, Wesfarmers, Nylex, IAG and Shell.
The Productivity Commission's draft report is due in May and the final recommendations in October. It will decide if Australia will improve its recovery of waste products or go back to a truck-and-dump mentality.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, April 12, 2006.
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