On December 10, the Federal Department of Climate Change Energy and Water quietly released Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan Review followed a few days later by the 2024 National Waste and Resource Recovery Report (finalised January 20, 2025).
The Review paints a dispiriting picture of missed 2030 waste targets ― with some measures even going backwards ― but it doesn’t have to be that way, according to Veolia ANZ CEO and Managing Director Richard Kirkman.
Veolia and many other large companies are poised to invest in Australia’s sustainable future, with Veolia’s Green Up strategy particularly targeted to massively increase investment in Australia’s circular economy. With the right policies in place, Veolia believes Australia can achieve its 2030 waste targets and see the sustainable impacts of those investments considerably amplified now and into the future.
To get there, Veolia has proposed five bold policy commitments to put Australia back on the path to becoming a recycling, repair, and reuse superpower, all while creating new export markets.
“There is no doubt we remain encouraged by the State and Federal Governments’ focus on the policies needed to create a future circular economy. It is a very positive step to have strong national targets but it requires equally ambitious incentives and regulatory instruments to make those targets happen,” Richard Kirkman, Veolia ANZ’s CEO and Managing Director said.
“It is time now to put our foot on the accelerator to get to that circular economy destination because we need it. We need to urgently approve critical waste infrastructure today and to set a bold five-point policy framework that levels the playing field and encourages private sector investment, much the same as we see in the renewable energy sector. We are a global company ready to invest in a sustainable future for Australia, which is on the cusp of achieving that goal if it implements the right policy settings.”
“Veolia’s Green Up strategy will see us invest across Australia over the coming year in multiple sectors, including in recycling infrastructure. However, if private sector investment like ours is going to have a meaningful impact on our 2030 targets, there needs to be some form of government support at scale, as there has been for renewable energy,” Mr Kirkman said.
“That five-point framework must ensure that waste levies across the country are set at the right level and are consistent across every state and territory, it must streamline approvals of vital recycling infrastructure, cancel perverse export bans on credible recycled commodities, level the playing field by creating a mandatory recovery scheme for all products, and, introduce a carbon price that applies equally to all landfills large or small.
The call for more policy ambition comes after the National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2024 found Australians have produced 5.6 million tonnes more waste overall in 2022-2023 compared to 2016/17. The amount of organic waste going to landfill has declined from 5.7 million tonnes to 5.4 million tonnes a year but this is far short of the 2030 target to reduce the amount of organic material going to landfill by half (down to 2.8 million tonnes). While there was a slight upward trend in overall recycling rates of all materials, these trends were well below what is needed to meet the 80% recycling target by 2030 set by the Government. In short, none of the quantifiable waste targets set in 2016/17 will be met by 2030 or even go close.
Plastic remains a major waste issue with 87.5% of plastics still going to landfill despite recent bans on problematic plastics coming online in most states and territories. Even with these bans, it is clear the National Packaging commitment set in 2018 for 100% of packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 will not be met.
“The single most powerful policy of the five is to introduce a higher waste levy. If you get the levy right then you get investment, because, right now, it's still cheaper to landfill than recycle and that’s a problem. To direct that investment we need the extended producer responsibility (EPR), which is a policy lever that ensures manufacturers, consumers, and recyclers all play a role in making sure that every product has a viable end of life recovery route that will see it reused, repaired, recycled and not sent to landfill,” Mr Kirkman said.
“These two policies hand in hand (levy and EPR) ensure all goods and packaging will have end of life disposal designed-in from the start, so that every part of it can be recycled or reused. The way to enforce that is to make those people who produce products have to pay for their disposal ― and that includes imported goods.
Mr Kirkman said new waste policy must turbocharge the investment needed to build the infrastructure to recycle at scale and correspondingly create markets for those recycled materials.
“Small scale innovations ― like making bioplastics from crops ― voluntary schemes and waiting for markets to slowly grow won’t cut it. We need scalable, policy driven, system wide change that creates a fertile space for investment in recycling infrastructure and to grow the markets that use recovered resources,” Mr Kirkman said.
“I am confident that if new policy settings can encourage that kind of investment then we will see a sharp increase in innovation around recycling, and the development of new products and processes that could make Australia a world leading circular economy, and create new global markets for Australian manufactured products and recycled resources.”
See more details of the 5-Point Waste Policy Plan below.
Kirkman’s 5-Point Waste Policy Plan
These are the five areas that can take our 2030 waste targets from ambition to reality:
- Introduce identical and higher waste levies across Australia: Currently, waste levies remain too low and are inconsistently applied across Australia’s states and territories, which still makes it cheaper and easier for waste to go to landfill rather than seeking recycle, repair or reuse alternatives. Higher waste levies create incentives for the four Rs of a successful circular economy ― to reduce, reuse, repair and recycle waste.
- Accelerate development approvals for waste infrastructure: The only way we can achieve our recycling and reuse goals is to create the infrastructure to sort, recycle and repurpose recycled resources at scale. Bespoke small recycling outfits won’t make the difference we need to meet our goals. Australia needs infrastructure at scale as quickly as possible. We must prioritise streamlining approval processes for infrastructure that will help Australia to meet its circular economy goals.
- Reverse export bans on recycled resources that create perverse outcomes: Bans by the Australian government that prevent export of high quality recycled resources like clean purified paper and clean plastic bottles to international markets will see more materials that could be recycled going to landfill. This is because there is insufficient infrastructure in Australia to recycle this material and not enough markets to take it even if we could. These materials can’t be endlessly stockpiled meaning they will inevitably go to landfill. This not only negatively impacts our targets it also blocks the development of new export markets for Australian resources.
This is material that will be made into packaging overseas for imports to Australia, as part of a global market. This is why exports should be allowed, enabling a circular economy of materials to be recycled and used again.
- Level the playing field through economy wide product stewardship legislation: Also known as extended producer responsibility, this policy mandates that goods and packaging will have end of life disposal designed-in from the start. That means every part of any product can be recycled, repaired or reused. Those people who produce products will have to pay for their end of life disposal with incentives that make repairing, reusing and recycling a more affordable and realistic option.
- Introduce a carbon price for all landfills: The largest landfills in Australia have performed best in capturing and reducing methane emissions, which are turned into energy. As an example, together they only make up 3% of the total landfill sector emissions while accepting 17% of the country’s waste. These large landfills will be subjected to the proposed safeguard mechanism and will incur costs from their carbon emissions, while smaller landfills are excluded altogether. The perverse outcome is that the gate fees at these large landfills will have to increase to meet the costs of carbon credits, while smaller landfills that don’t perform as well and produce 97% of emissions will not have to pay for those emissions. The government needs to set a level playing field by applying a price on carbon emissions that is the same across all landfills regardless of size.
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