Why eating less meat is the best thing you can do for the planet in 2019

Recycling or taking the bus rather than driving to work has its place, but scientists are increasingly pointing to a deeper lifestyle change that would be the single biggest way to help the planet: eating far less meat.

Beef cattle stand at a ranch in this aerial photograph taken
above Texas. Meat and dairy accounts for just 18%
 of all food calories and around a third of protein.

A swathe of research released over the past year has laid bare the hefty impact that eating meat, especially beef and pork, has upon the environment by fueling climate change and polluting landscapes and waterways.

Industrialized agriculture and the onset of the worst species extinction crisis since the demise of the dinosaurs means that livestock and humans now make up 96% of all mammals. But despite consuming the vast majority of farmland, meat and dairy accounts for just 18% of all food calories and around a third of protein.

Read the story from The Guardian by Oliver Milman - “Why eating less meat is the best thing you can do for the planet in 2019.”

Recycling controls add to cost

China’s tougher restrictions on recycling will cost the City of Greater Shepparton about $850 000 a year for at least the next couple of years, Shepparton’s city engineer says.

Implications: China has restricted the import
of recyclable materials, resulting in costs
 to Greater Shepparton City Council.

Meanwhile, Greater Shepparton City Council recently struck a two-year deal with its existing recycling contractor, boosting reliability for the council for the time being.

The Victorian Government recently launched its $37 million plan aimed at cutting the amount of recycling going to landfill and creating new markets for recycled products.

The announcement followed China’s decision this year to restrict the import of recyclable materials.

Under the Victorian Government’s plan, the quality of recycled material would be improved, opening the door for businesses to ‘‘add value’’ to recyclable material, to help meet China’s new requirements.

The package also aims to boost investment in recycling infrastructure through a $8.3 milli

on expansion to the Resource Recovery Infrastructure Fund.

The council deals with more than 7000 tonnes of recycled material each year.

Greater Shepparton’s city engineer Phil Hoare said a tightening of the quality of the recycling material going into China would create an additional cost of recycling material each year, and that ongoing implication might depend on market forces.

But securing a new contract with the help of Victorian Government support would ensure increased certainty for the council, it said.

Council chief executive Peter Harriott emphasised the need to be flexible to go with changes, should situations change again.

But he said the new contract would allow ‘‘us to give a clear message to the community, that we’ve got in place systems that allow the seamless continuation of the recycling service’’.

‘‘Going forward, we need to see an industry that is less reliant on overseas markets, I guess,’’ he said.

‘‘That, combined with less packaging, is the way we need to go.’’

Story from The Shepparton News - “Recycling controls add to cost.”

A solution for the recycling crisis: turn plastic into energy

Australia's recycling crisis needs us to look into waste management options beyond just recycling and landfilling. Some of our waste, like paper or organic matter, can be composted. Some, like glass, metal and rigid plastics, can be recycled. But we have no immediate solution for non-recyclable plastic waste except landfill.

A worker separates plastic bottles at a recycling depot in Beijing.

At a meeting last month, federal and state environment ministers endorsed an ambitious target to make all Australian packaging recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025. But the ministers also showed support for processes to turn our waste into energy, although they did not specifically discuss plastic waste as an energy source.

Read Muxina Konarova’s comment in The Age - “A solution for the recycling crisis: turn plastic into energy.”

A billion kilograms of recycling in need of a new home

The scale of Australia's recycling crisis is twice as bad as initially feared, with new figures showing that well over a million tonnes of metal, paper and plastics previously sent to China now has to be accommodated elsewhere.

Chris Philp, general manager of Wheelie Waste,  amongst a
day's worth of recycling from the Victorian town of
Kyneton, population approximately 7000.

Such a vast amount of rubbish is hard to wrap your head around, so we've converted the figures to regular household recycling items. The illustrations are indicative only, because the range of materials recycled in each category is much broader and includes building waste, industrial packaging and many other types.

But this should give you some indication of the amount of rubbish we're talking about. Remember, this is material that was once exported to China that is now, largely, piling up at Australian waste centres.

Read the story by Mark Solomon from The Age - “A billion kilograms of recycling in need of a new home.”

Australia’s kerbside recycling system in crisis following China ban

Australia’s kerbside recycling systems are at risk of collapse, a Senate inquiry has heard. China’s ban on importation of recyclable rubbish has left councils and state governments in Victoria and New South Wales scrambling to find space to stockpile growing mounds of waste.

Tony Khoury from the Waste Contractors and Recycling
Association of NSW said: ‘The intention is to increase stockpile
 limits, not send it to landfill. But that is not realistic.’ 

An estimated half of Australia’s recyclable waste was going to China before the ban, the hearing was told, although the precise share of waste exported was not known.

Victoria was already in crisis – waste contractors to 13 regional councils had stopped accepting recyclables last month.

Read The Guardian story by Kelsey Monro - “Australia’s kerbside recycling system in crisis following China ban.”

No bin collections for thousands as recycling crisis intensifies

Tens of thousands of people in two council areas northwest of Melbourne have had their bin collections cut off as the state's recycling crisis intensifies.

Wheelie Waste general manager Chris Philp among
a day's worth of collected recycling from Kyneton.

The Age believes that another 13 councils are on rolling payment plans with their bin contractors, with concerns any of those deals could fall over at any moment.

Macedon Ranges Shire Council – which covers nine towns including Kyneton, Lancefield and Gisborne – and Mount Alexander Shire Council – which takes in eight towns including Castlemaine and Maldon – were told by waste collector Wheelie Waste on Wednesday morning that it would no longer collect rubbish.

Despite a day of crisis meetings, the situation was unresolved on Wednesday evening.

Read the story by Liam Mannix in The Age - “No bin collections for thousands as recycling crisis intensifies.”

Australian household recycling 'at risk' from China ban

Australia’s entire system of “yellow-lid bin” kerbside recycling is at risk from China’s clampdown on imported recyclables, state and Commonwealth officials have been told during crisis talks with the waste industry and local government.

There are fears for the future of Australia's recycling industry.

Officials have been warned of potentially serious environmental, political and economic fallout from the Chinese move because only months remain before stockpiling limits are reached at recycling stations and no viable alternatives have been proposed for Australia’s heavy reliance on the Chinese market for its waste.

Read the story from The Age by mark Solomons - “Australian household recycling 'at risk' from China ban.”

Recycling in Australia is in crisis. Can it be fixed?

Australians take recycling seriously.

China's import ban pulled the rug out from
under recycling industries worldwide.

We recycled 60 per cent of the total waste we produced in 2014-15, according to the latest national waste report.

For most of us, recycling means we put our waste in the yellow-top bin. That is then picked up, taken to a recycling facility and turned back into its basic material — plastic, glass, aluminium, paper.

But it turns out recycling is not so simple, and there are major problems in the Australian industry.

A Four Corners investigation last year and more recent Fairfax investigation found significant amounts of recyclable materials are being dumped in landfill.

And when China stopped taking Australia's recyclable plastics at the beginning of this year, it became apparent just how dependent our industry was on shipping our waste overseas.

Industry leaders admit Australia's recycling industry is in crisis, but they also say there are some very simple ways it can be fixed.

Read the ABC News story by Nick Kilvert - “Recycling in Australia is in crisis. Can it be fixed?”

Recycling crisis: True goal is zero waste going to landfill

After years of doing the right thing by separating our garbage so that our glass bottles, newspapers and plastics can be recycled, Victorians are now being told that all that recycling could be, well, a waste of time.

We are facing a potential waste crisis – and a totally predictable one, too.

According to the Municipal Association of Victoria, a decision by China to place a ban on the import of recycling materials from outside the country has resulted in several councils having their recycling contracts cut back by our waste companies.

Read the comment by Richard Fine in today’s Age - “Recycling crisis: True goal is zero waste going to landfill.”

War on waste: readers share their top tips for reducing their environmental footprint

It’s the show that’s captured our imaginations. The ABC’s recent TV series War on Waste, presented by The Chaser’s Craig Reucassel, has inspired Australians to tackle overconsumption and waste in their daily lives by recycling soft plastics, switching to reusable coffee cups and composting food scraps.

Craig Reucassel and Robyn, one of the residents
featured in the TV series War on Waste.

These were the quick fixes, but we knew there was more we could all be doing. So we asked readers to share their tips.

We got a flood of responses, including advice on using reusable mesh produce bags for fruit and vegetables, setting up a worm farm on apartment balconies, visiting charity shops for clothing and other goods, ditching coffee pods entirely and generally consuming less.

And then there were those who knew how to take it to the next level. So here are our favourite tips for recycling and reducing waste:

Read Alexandra Spring’s story on The Guardian - “War on waste: readers share their top tips for reducing their environmental footprint.”

Jackson Carpenter on climate change

Jackson Carpenter has traveled, worked and lived in many parts of the world.

Discussing climate change.

He was educated at St. John’s College in Western and Eastern liberal arts, the history of science and mathematics. He believes that the humanities and sciences are siblings, not enemies. 

He has extensive experience working with biofuels education, biodiesel and recycling initiatives, as well as writing for magazines, content marketing firms and higher education. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Check out his website - “Jackson Carpenter”

We are too comfortable to understand and comprehend climate change

Most Australians, along with many of their compatriots in the developed world, are simply too comfortable.

Australia's pre-eminent "responsible
man", Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.

“Nothing wrong with that” many would argue in reply, omitting to acknowledge that such comforts bring with them a legacy that disables a person’s ability to understand the complications and difficulties that will arise from living with a climate never before experienced by humanity.

It seems that Australians are unable to grasp the reality that our future is going to be decidedly different and that if we don’t willingly change our behaviour, nature will step in and force those changes upon us.

The present way of life for most Australians is so fundamentally different from what will be common in just decades, that few of us can comprehend what we must do to create and build a truly resilient community, or even just neighbourhoods that will be adequately equipped to rise to the unfolding challenges of food, water, top soil and energy shortages.

The suits and ties of the “responsible men” are a symbol of an era wasted and it is time we moved on, scrapped those aged perversities that have with them a strange locked-in adherence to business as usual philosophies; ideas that are foreign to what humanity needs today.

Adaptation to tomorrow is not about the simplistic recycling of a few newspapers, changing a few light globes or just walking occasionally as opposed to driving, rather it is about understanding that the comfort we presently consider normal is the engine driving global warming and we need a wholesale change of our way of life.

by Robert McLean

 

'Rubbish' to be discussed Beneath the Wisteria

“Rubbish” will be discussed by those who gather Beneath the Wisteria in Shepparton’s Maude St Mall on Saturday, April 27.

Peter Foott from the Shepparton business, Foott Waste, will join the group to talk about the work of his company and its importance in caring for our environment.

He will also talk about the company’s involvement with recycling, waste management and the general collection of garbage, critical issues for those eager to understand their response to climate change.

Tomorrow’s gathering is open to all interested and starts at 11:30am at the northern end of the Maude St Mall.

Some community seating is available, but those attending are advised to bring a folding chair. There is no cost.