Day 13 'Resource Recovery'

Confession, this is actually day 13 and day 12, because Mum was out last night and the State of Origin was on. Commiserations to all the Blues fans out there. 

Now the content of this post is probably quite technical and dry, but try and stay with us to the end because we think it's actually quite a critical part of 'plastic free'.

The Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Implementation Plan

The what?

This little document (all 162 pages of it...) "ensures our [Melbourne's] waste and resource recovery system is integrated and provides an essential community service."

Still no clearer? This Plan tells us how Melbourne's waste will be managed over a 10 year period. It has four strategic objectives:

• Reduce waste sent to landfill
• Increase organic waste recovered
• Deliver community, environmental & economic benefits
• Plan for Melbourne’s growing population

All of this sounds fine enough until one of us ('Mum') actually started reading the document (I want to point out that I did have cause to read plan in the course of my work. My focus was on the land use buffers around current and future land fill sites).

What is incredible is while this plan is part of Victoria’s waste and resource recovery infrastructure planning framework (as set out in the Environmental Protection Act 1970) it has absolutely NO focus on reducing waste - only how the waste is 'recovered' or managed once created. Which is staggering given there are 21 landfills in Melbourne, and 10 of these will close in the next 10 years; and over the lifetime of the plan the amount of waste produced each year is expected to increase by 63 percent (based on current population projections).

Surely there needs to be an emphasis on or at least a relationship with reducing the amount of waste, whether that be 'recycling' 'organics' or 'waste'. So I turned to the Victorian Waste Education Strategy where I had a little more luck. This Strategy contains six 'strategic directions'

1. Increase the Victorian community and business perception of waste management as an essential service 
2. Increase community awareness of waste and support and encourage waste avoidance
3. Improve resource recovery and reduce contamination
4. Reduce litter and illegal dumping
5. Support waste and resource recovery education for schools
6. Strengthen Victoria’s waste and resource recovery education capabilities

Here's some of what I found out about the two actions under direction two (Increase community awareness of waste and support and encourage waste avoidance).

Action 1: Food waste avoidance

1.1 Provide information and guidance on minimising food waste to the community
1.2 Support the community to minimise food waste to landfill
1.3 Pilot food waste avoidance programs with the commercial and industrial sector in targeted local government areas.

Some facts to add to your knowledge about food waste: "Food waste makes up a significant component of the average household’s landfill bin in Victoria – about 40% of what is thrown out by weight. Victorians estimate that they waste around $40 a week on unused food and drink, equivalent to $2,000 a year. Across Victoria, this adds up to about $4 billion a year. Not only is this a loss of money to householders, it is a waste of the resources used to grow, process, package and transport food from markets to our homes."

Action 2: Waste avoidance and minimisation for business
2.1 Identify target business sectors
2.2 Partner with key organisations
2.3 Develop guidance material to support
2.4 Support SMEs who want to transition to waste avoidance and waste minimisation efficiencies

But at the end of all this reading we are really disappointed about the lack of action to reduce the amount of waste being produced in the first instance. The Waste Education Strategy really appears to lack any real teeth to effect change. There are so many 'weasel' words, encourage, support (those who want to), partner with. Very disappointing.

Our suggestions for an addition to Plastic Free July:

• Get involved! If there's an opportunity to contribute to  a strategy or a plan about waste - take the time to contribute and make your opinion known. The more diverse input to these plans and strategies the better. Make sure the relevant politician know your view on waste - specifically plastic and the need to reduce the amount of plastic, especially throw away single use items.
• There's a need to keep Government (in this case more specifically Sustainability Victoria) accountable for all of the actions in the Victorian Waste Education Policy. We plan to write (e-mail) the relevant Minister expressing our disappointment with the policy, and request a progress updates to understand what's actually being achieved.

Questions

What are you going to do to reduce your food waste? Surely that $40 is better of in your wallet, than being tossed away.