Adversity ignites innovation. China’s unheralded decision several months ago to stop importing much of the world’s recyclable rubbish was seen as a disaster for Australia and a number of other shocked nations.
Prices for the materials plunged, the market collapsed, recycling companies stopped collecting refuse, councils cried poor. Many people predicted a protracted crisis, a nation choking on its garbage. Instead, a realisation that we were wasting waste is catalysing creative, environmentally sustainable and economically rational solutions. The breakdown of the system is also spawning the profound benefit of shifting our focus beyond waste recycling to waste reduction, elegantly complementary notions.
Encouraging progress has been reported in the past few days alone. We are seeing roads to the future. Councils, in collaboration with companies and governments, are experimenting with technology that produces roads – with greater durability than existing surfaces – from waste glass and plastic mixed with asphalt. The technology is an ecologically honed extension of a process that emerged in India almost two decades ago. It appears safe, but policymakers are rightly conducting due diligence before rolling it out across the land.
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