Waste Management in South Australia - Zero Waste SA
Zero waste is a goal to achieve zero discharge, zero material waste
and zero atmospheric damage. This term is derived from the Japanese
industrial concept of total quality management. It is influenced by the
idea of ‘zero defects’ in manufacturing.
Zero Waste focuses on the whole lifecycle of products including
production, design, waste reduction, reuse and recycling.
The objective of zero waste SA is to promote waste management that as
far as possible eliminate waste or its consignment into a landfill,
advance the development of resource recovery and recycling, and are
based on an integrated strategy for the State.
The South Australian government established this new legislative
framework to enable State and Local Government to work together to drive
a new strategy for waste avoidance and reduction, waste reuse and
recycling and waste disposal. This commitment arose from the recognition
that waste management in South Australia was still fundamentally reliant
upon landfill and that despite our efforts to date we had not
substantially succeeded in alleviating this reliance. By disposing waste
to landfill we bury many useful resources preventing ongoing use of the
material(s) in one form or another. Although these materials can be
remade, this requires large amounts of energy, and the consumption of
more resources. The disposal of waste to landfill removes the potential
to derive a higher resource value from the waste materials through
re-use, recycling and resource recovery. Producing unnecessary waste
means we are not using resources sustainably.
Zero Waste SA is also providing assistance to local councils with
arrangements for regional waste management, contributing to the
development of waste management infrastructure and advising the Minister
on measures to improve waste management in South Australia.
This therefore necessitated the establishment of a waste strategy.
South Australia's Waste Strategy 2005 – 2010:
South Australia’s first State-wide waste strategy has been released.
The strategy aims to ensure a healthy environment for South Australians
now and into the future.
State and Local Government agencies, the waste management industry,
business and the community have been involved in helping Zero Waste SA
to develop the waste strategy and guide the way in which waste is
managed in South Australia.
The strategy establishes waste reduction goals and targets for South
Australia and sets out a range of strategies and steps to achieve these
goals and targets.
The five year strategy is focused on five key objectives:
- Foster sustainable behaviour - simply providing information will
not influence people to recycle or re-use material or resources in a
sustainable way.
- Less waste - achieving substantially less waste going to
landfill in South Australia means that materials must be redirected
towards more beneficial uses.
- Effective systems - South Australia needs to establish, maintain
and increase the capacity of recycling systems and re-processing
infrastructure in metropolitan and regional areas.
- Effective policy instruments - economic, regulatory and other
policy measures must be introduced to give the necessary traction in
the market place to encourage avoidance, reduction re-use and
recycling of waste.
- Successful cooperation - targets of this and future strategies
will only be reached with the successful cooperation of a range of
stakeholders.
There is also the proposed ban on plastic bags from 1st January 2009
which will go along way to impact positively on zero waste. Why?
Plastic bags are seen as a symbol of a wasteful society as they are a
form of packaging that is often not essential. Plastic bags are a
problem for various reasons:
- As a single use disposable form of packaging, plastic bags are
typically used for a short period of time but take hundreds of years
to break down in.
- Plastic bags are an extremely visible and unsightly component of
litter. If plastic bags continue to be used, the number of bags
littering the environment will increase over time. Local and State
Governments around Australia spend more than $200 million per year
picking up litter.
- The production of plastic bags accounts for some 37,000 tonnes
of plastic polymer derived from non-renewable resources. While
plastic bags can be recycled, only a tiny proportion of plastic bags
are collected and reprocessed.
- Plastic bags are considered to be a 'free' commodity, but the
cost to households of $10 to $15 per year is added to the price of
goods that they purchase.
- Planet Ark estimates that plastic bags kill at least 100,000
birds, whales, seals and turtles every year.
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