Recycling to save the planet: another great environmental hoax

The next stage in market reaction to the ACT's high tip fees has involved builders and entrepreneurs in the ACT buying farms in nearby NSW (preferably farms with extensive gullies or an old quarry). The farms are being used by Canberra construction companies to dump thousands of tonnes of fill just over the border to avoid the high cost of disposal in the ACT. The savings to builders amount to millions, though it comes at the cost of thousands of truck movements annually.

In December, Yass Valley Council approved the latest project - 90,000 tonnes of Canberra construction fill to be dumped on a property near Hall in NSW. There are reportedly at least five similar projects just over the border in that area and around Sutton, with clean fill being used to fill-in erosion gullies. Council plans modest levies to recover truck damage to affected local roads.

An even bigger issue is illegal dumps, where entire gullies have been filled with discarded tyres or other waste, and then been covered over.

This brings us to the next area of absurd recycling policies, namely how the market has responded to the growing mountains of unwanted recovered glass.

• In a prominent case, one entrepreneur in 2014 reportedly was paid $38 a tonne (by a recycler at Canberra's main Mugga Lane dump) to take away glass (originating from Canberra's yellow-topped recycling bins). At the time, it was said that $140 a tonne was the charge for dumping the glass in landfill in the ACT.

The entrepreneur claimed the waste glass would be used in the manufacture of pavers. Instead, he allegedly (without permission) made a tidy profit dumping 900 tonnes of glass on a relative's non-residential farm off the Federal Highway near Lake George. The (contaminated) glass still remains there (in a heap) despite protests from the affected relative and her neighbours. The same entrepreneur is also accused of storing glass fines on a block in Fyshwick around 2015, and subsequently abandoning the stockpile. The owner of this block says he spent $300,000 last year cleaning it up.

Following the collapse of end markets for recycled glass, ACT Minister for Transport and City Services, Chris Steele, is now talking about reprocessing glass into sand (for use in construction and to make asphalt). Given the ready availability of cheap commercially sourced building sand, this is going to be some of the most expensive sand in the country to produce.

At one stage the ACT's recycling centre at Hume was temporarily shut down. A spokeswoman said recyclables from there were dumped in landfill as a "stop gap" solution, while the plant struggled with an increase in deliveries, especially from the ACT government's Container Deposit Scheme.

This scheme was the fourth of its type to be introduced in Australia. Because NSW launched its own scheme in December 1, 2017, the ACT (not wanting to be outdone) was certain to follow. Under the Scheme, consumers are able to return eligible, empty beverage containers and receive a 10 cent refund for each container. It is widely claimed that the scheme wasn't justified environmentally and merely passed on a substantial tax to consumers of beverages.

A report by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of NSW found that non-alcoholic beverages had increased by an average of 10.1¢ due to the NSW scheme, and alcoholic beverages by 5.1¢. An aluminium can prior to the commencement of these schemes would have had a scrap value of about 3¢, but its surrender value instantly became 10¢.

The ACT, prior to its scheme, (through its yellow recycling bins) already had one of the biggest capture rates in the country of plastic bottles and aluminium cans (so there was no need for the scheme). The diversion of used aluminium cans away from kerbside recycling almost certainly has further reduced the viability of that scheme. There is also a substantial cost on consumers in terms of their time, and from the transport costs taking containers to collection machines.

Overall, where should recycling policy go?