9 Waste

Key messages

• The waste sector is being transformed by new market dynamics, with the waste export ban a catalyst for short-term reform.

• Challenges such as increasing resource consumption, waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions further support the case for change.

• The transformation presents compelling opportunities for cost reduction and new business creation.

• Australians are among the largest generators of waste per capita in the world. Yet Australia's waste market is underdeveloped, its waste culture is immature and community understanding of resource recovery activities is low.

• Inconsistent and unclear policy, including constitutional impediments, often deters state and territory collaboration and further investment in resource recovery solutions.

• The sector is also held back by insufficient, unreliable data, which is currently collected at different points within the system without clear frameworks for its use.

• To meet the long-term needs of all Australians, Australia needs a tailored nationwide approach to developing waste infrastructure that is secure, integrated and meets its primary functions of cost-effectively maintaining public health with lower environmental impacts.

• Investing in domestic waste and resource recovery infrastructure would stimulate local economic activity by creating new jobs, products and revenue streams. It provides an opportunity to retain valuable resources within the local economy and reduce Australia's reliance on virgin materials.

• Diverting more waste from landfill will require new or enhanced local resource recovery infrastructure and services.

• Australians have an overly consumptive lifestyle, there are imbalances between production and consumption, and the waste management system contends with excessive amounts of discarded materials.

• Transformation needs all Australians to embrace a zero-waste culture. This means changing deeply entrenched consumption trends and countering pressures that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Australia's waste challenges can only be mitigated if multiple stakeholders undertake systems-level change work to transform the whole system, rather than addressing individual parts of it in isolation.