Recycling
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Recycling crisis
Big business calls on government to police tide of plastic packaging
The companies behind Australia’s biggest consumer brands are calling for regulation of recycling and packaging to ensure consistency between the states and territories, and ensure laggards don’t benefit from cheaper costs.
- by Caitlin Fitzsimmons
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Opinion
Opinion
When kids get $20 from the tooth fairy, 10¢ to ‘cash a can’ in Victoria isn’t cutting it
Cash for cans is back, and I’m hooked. But my reverse vending machine keeps throwing a wobbly. Could the scheme be too successful?
- by Claire Heaney
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Inventors
These plastics were ‘unrecyclable’. An Australian invention is changing that
Groundbreaking technology developed by University of NSW researchers transforms hard plastics from old office equipment into 3D printer feedstock.
- by Andrew Taylor
City of Melbourne sells rubbish services for $110 million to Cleanaway
Lord Mayor Sally Capp, in her final week in the role, said the ASX-listed Cleanaway would also redevelop the city’s waste-transfer facility in North Melbourne.
- by Cara Waters
Need any salt and pepper shakers? An old piano could help
A 140-year-old upright in Helenmary Burnside’s family for four generations was past its best. She and hundreds of others have called in the piano upcyclers.
- by Carolyn Webb
The push to revive soft plastic recycling in Australia is quietly under way
Two years after REDCycle’s collapse, a pilot program is operating in 12 supermarkets – but one recycling executive says the big chains need to own their waste.
- by Adam Carey
‘A lucrative business’: Why 730 tonnes of tyres have been seized in Australia in the past year
Illegal exports of Australia’s waste, including tyres, are in high demand by international manufacturers, to create fuel oil for further plastics manufacturing.
- by Amber Schultz
‘I’ve still got my mother-in-law’s Mixmaster’: Inside Sydney’s dying breed of repair shops
As tinkers and cobblers dwindle in number, and goods are easier to replace than repair, some businesses are bucking the trend.
- by Julie Power
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Charity
Cycling’s dirty secret: 300,000 bikes a year dumped in landfill
The frenzy of bicycle purchases during the early COVID-19 pandemic is about to make the problem even worse. But one Sydney group has rescued almost 11,000 bikes from landfill.
- by Caitlin Fitzsimmons
The everyday mistake sparking more than 1000 fires a year
Batteries being thrown in the bin are a growing threat to safety, bursting into flames as they degrade. Would people recycle them properly if they were paid?
- by Mike Foley