Landfill costs drove innovation.

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Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Tas » 22nd Jul, '11, 09:14

I think this opinion piece is excellent. It brings it back to the basics. I know the truth of their discussion because I have spent the best part of the last few years working in related areas, and it does drive efficiencies and it does drive waste reduction, and it does drive opportunities.



What a load of rubbish: we've been paying waste levies for years Williams/Griffin
July 22, 2011

Opinion

There has long been a precedent for the imposition of a carbon tax, write Louise Williams and Cathy Griffin.

In Sydney we've all been paying a price to pollute for 40 years. Yet, until recently, no one seemed to think the sky was falling in.

When the first “waste levy” came into force in the Sydney metropolitan area in 1971 it was 51¢ a tonne, about the same as a decent sandwich and a milkshake. Today, solid waste from households, businesses, industry and public services attracts a whopping $70.30 a tonne at the tip gate. Next year it will be $80.30 plus CPI.

What's the difference between putting a price on rubbish and charging the biggest polluters a set rate per tonne of greenhouse gases “tipped” into the atmosphere? The rationale is the same. When you put a price on habitual behaviour, such as driving out to the tip on Sunday with the trailer, everyone thinks twice.

Advertisement: Story continues below And, has the steeply rising cost of dumping waste in landfill been passed onto us ordinary Australians, as the carbon tax will be? Yes, of course. Councils paid about one-third of the $340 million the NSW Government raised through landfill levies last year and businesses paid the rest. As the carbon tax will, the cost of waste levies has long been trickling down to increases in rates (and rents) and prices across a wide range of goods and services. Today, if I want a six cubic metre skip to load up with my rubbish – enough for a small renovation job – it will cost me $598 according to my local “best rate”.

The beauty of setting up a financial hurdle at the tip gate is that it encourages councils, households and businesses to look for alternative ways to get rid of our rubbish or to reduce the huge volumes of waste we generate.

In Armidale, for example, the city council has doubled the charge for the collection of household waste which is not sorted into recyclable and non-recyclable bins, putting an extra impost equivalent to $90/tonne on those who can't be bothered.

But, that's very small beer compared to what's changing for businesses; which do pay the levy direct. Last year, the NSW government's Richmond Review concluded that much of the investment in new “resource recovery” technology for waste could be attributed directly to levies. Specifically, the continuously rising cost of dumping waste in landfills has made recycling commercially viable and competitive. And, as “alternative waste technology” plants are new industries, they create new jobs. (Businesses did try trucking waste to Queensland to dump it for free, until a levy was introduced there, too.)

Over the past decade commercial and industrial waste to landfill has fallen from close to 2.5 million tonnes to about 1.9 million tonnes in NSW, despite steady economic growth; and the volume of waste to recycling plants from all sectors has increased by 80 per cent. Today, 58 per cent of the state's rubbish is recycled.

In 2008 Penrith city council paid $6million in landfill charges; council calculated that by 2018 the bill would be almost $25 million a year. So, in 2009 it rolled out a new household waste collection system which was initially so unpopular the council was accused of being “communist”. Householders must now separate all their organic waste, including food scraps – which currently make up 40 per cent of refuse to landfill – to be collected for processing into compost for council lands, or local use.

In a year the diversion of waste into recycling or reprocessing rose from 20 per cent to 61.5 per cent, the council saved $2.1 million and 73 per cent of Penrith residents turned out to be “happy” with the new system. Manly Council will follow soon.

By world waste standards, however, Sydney is still a pretty ordinary performer. The headline acts are cities such as Oslo and San Francisco; Oslo uses landfill to generate power and diverts 82 per cent of its rubbish to recycling, reprocessing or reuse and San Francisco implemented mandatory sorting early on after establishing the first urban-scale composting operation in the US.

The way Australia's carbon tax debate is running you'd think a price signal was a new idea. What 40 years of tip fees in Sydney has clearly demonstrated is that cost does shift investment into new clean tech industries and that it can change our behaviour.

Louise Williams is a partner in the Sydney consultancy Writemedia. Cathy Griffin is a Manly councillor.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/ ... z1SnBa5ptf
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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Pinklepurr » 12th Nov, '12, 07:05

Yeah, great article, brings it back home to a level where people understand it for sure.
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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Morrolan » 12th Nov, '12, 08:04

good points.

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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Fat Bob » 12th Nov, '12, 09:56

"Householders must now separate all their organic waste, including food scraps – which currently make up 40 per cent of refuse to landfill – to be collected for processing into compost for council lands, or local use."

It would be interesting to see how much food is wasted. Reduce that, the consumer will reduce their household costs and the council will reduce their landfill costs. Everyone is a winner.

(I did see a staggeringly large number regarding food waste in the US recently - I can't see it being any different in Europe or Australia).
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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Kooky » 12th Nov, '12, 10:12

Interesting how it took a rubbish post (not yours, PP, one that got deleted!) to kick-start this convo :)

I posted something on FB about food waste, I'll see if I can find it.

edit: USA throws away US$160 billion annually, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council's food and agriculture program. Put in more meaningful terms, roughly 40% of the food supply.

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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Kooky » 12th Nov, '12, 10:21


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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Fat Bob » 12th Nov, '12, 10:27

Hmmmm...the bit about Greenhouse gases: if the wasted food is composted, would it also give off methane? So really, the driver is to reduce and eliminate waste, not to think about alternative methods of using the waste?
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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Tas » 12th Nov, '12, 10:47

Glad to see points still relevant for discussion. And interesting for me personally as just last week I did a 3 case study costing for a colleague on some historical work we'd done (A) Do nothing at time, (B)Changes we made convert to a co-product, (C) Changes we made and treat as a waste. The differences were up to 2 million AUD and still paying for our salaries :)

Be interested to know others thoughts around the Permeate Free milk marketing campaign on at the moment in Australia, I have more open minded attitude towards it - seeing permeate as a co-product that has value instead of treating as a waste with high costs and carbon footprint to treat. Shows the problem of communication and understanding lifecycle analysis if you ask me.
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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Kooky » 12th Nov, '12, 10:58

We've talked about this on the Milk thread. I just think it should be made clear if a milk contains it, then it's up to the consumer to buy it or not.

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Re: Landfill costs drove innovation.

Post by Morrolan » 12th Nov, '12, 11:35

one unwanted side-effect in the Netherlands of the composting was that it completely destroyed the compost industry and created a massive surplus of compost that nobody wanted to buy.

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