by LAUREN FROST
City of Sydney will ramp up efforts to combat Australia’s “major recycling issue”, following Councillor Linda Scott’s call for increased City action on recycling.
Brought forward to Council in their last meeting on December 11, the motion highlighted that Australia’s waste production has increased to 74 million tonnes annually, according to the National Report 2020.
Councillor Scott said, “With 40% of Australia’s waste being sent directly into landfill, Australia has a major recycling issue.”
“There’s never been a more important time to address Australia’s rubbish and recycling crisis.”
The motion also noted the eight priority recycling areas outlined by Labor’s Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek MP: photovoltaic waste, electronic waste, textile, tyres, mattresses, solvents, plastics in healthcare, and children’s car seats.
Councillor Scott said, “As a City of Sydney Labor councillor, I am proud to be leading the work to create a more circular economy alongside Labor’s Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek MP.”
Australia’s biggest waste concerns
Each year, 200,000 car seats are thrown away despite more than 80 per cent being recyclable.
In a bid to address improper car seat disposal, SeatCare, a national, voluntary, industry-led product stewardship scheme, was developed. The program provides free drop-off locations for car seats to be dismantled and recycled properly in order to reduce the space in landfill.
In Australia, 1.8M mattresses are disposed of every year, 740,000 of which are thrown into landfill. This works out to be around 22,000 tonnes of mattresses.
To combat the mattress waste issues, Labor’ Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek MP has established the Australian Bedding Stewardship Scheme, which works with mattress supply chain manufactures to utilise inputs that work towards a circular economy for mattresses and bedding.
Another shocking figure is that of discarded textiles – almost 200,000 tonnes of textiles are disposed of each year, with more than 105,000 tonnes exported offshore.
To counter that, Labor’s environment minister created Seamless, the National Clothing Product Stewardship Scheme, which aims to create a circular clothing industry by 2030, incentivising clothing designs that are more durable, recyclable and foster ethical manufacturing.
The motion also requested that the CEO explore potential partnerships or City-supported linen drives with ‘Give a Sheet® for the Planet!’, a series of linen collections around Australia run by textile resource recovery company, BlockTexx.
Through ‘Give a Sheet® for the Planet!’, Australians can donate unwanted household linen, sheets and towels which are then converted into valuable, high-grade recycled materials.
To date, the drive is responsible for the diversion of 32,000 kilos of linen from landfills.
Cr Scott said, “Focusing specifically on mattress, car seat and textile recycling, my Council motion was unanimously carried to develop a partnership with the Australian Bedding Stewardship Council, SeatCare, Seamless and BlockTexx’s ‘Give a Sheet!’ to ensure we are able to better reuse raw materials from these products.”
Though SeatCare is not currently operational, a working group for the scheme remains, and the Government is hopeful that they will move forward to deliver the scheme nationally.
However, the motion, which was passed unanimously, approved the request for the Chief Executive Officer to investigate signing up for a child car seat recycling scheme similar to SeatCare, or Seatcare itself, in the event it becomes operational once more.
The City’s recycling efforts
Already, the City of Sydney offers textile recycling through quarterly ‘Recycle It Saturday’ events, recycling pop-ups in Ultimo, and a free doorstep recycling service. They also run clothing swap events and sewing and repair workshops.
In addition to that, the council is currently participating in a 12-month uniform recycling trial with Upparel. Old uniforms from cleaning, resource recovery, and parks teams are donated to charity for reuse, and items that cannot be reused are recycled to produce a soft infill fibre that is used by other local manufacturers for pet bedding, soft furniture and building insulation.
The Council has already made great efforts in recycling mattresses since their partnership with Soft Landing in 2015, a national social enterprise that collects and recycles mattresses.
City of Sydney’s council staff have also worked to ensure their mattress recycling contract with Soft Landing is accredited with the Australian Bedding Stewardship Scheme, a not-for-profit industry partnership established in 2020 that works with all levels of Government, supply chain, manufacturers, retailers and recyclers to move towards a circular economy for mattresses and bedding.
