Is your recycling bin really being recycled?

A recent story found plastic recycling is a scam and when China stopped accepting our plastics, the gig was up. Almost no recycling of any sort is done in Australia and there is not a lot of incentive to crank up the industry either.

So why are we expected to meticulously go through our rubbish to sort it into three or even four bins that take up a lot of space and are often only half full?

Check your local council website, they are often heavy on when the bins will be picked up and how to sort your rubbish, but there is precious little on where it actually goes.  

Are you fed up with sorting for three bins? Is it time to call our councils into account about where our recycling goes?

2 comments

I do not believe that recycling is considered a scam. Why would councils throughout Australia bother to collect millions of bins separately at a huge expense and then dispose of the recycled items onto landfill areas. Utter rubbish! Sorry about the pun! 

I think it's more about appearance and reputation. They would be rubbished from one end of town to the other by the "Kermit colored people" if they aren't seen to be doing something.

Stanley, I agree.  The "green" lobby are full on with the reducing "rubbish" going to landfill and believe that this is helping to save the planet.  If a community is more than 200 km from an actual recycling recovery processor, there is no energy benefit in sending such materials as glass and paper beyond the local tip.  In Queensland all local authorities have to register their landfill sites with the State Government.  This is not cheap.  All waste transfer stations have to have ongoing monitoring of their sites to ensure that no contamination enters the ground water tables.

A Queensland company had developed a process where plastics were rendered and compressed into synthetic boards.  These were used to make park benches, boardwalks and guardrails for use in Qld National Parks.  During a not so distant bushfire season, it was found that these recycled plastic pieces actually burst into flame and spread the flames.  The result of this was that all such structures were to be removed from all Qld National Parks.

2 comments



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