Under a new target, 100% of Australian packaging will be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025. But this is not enough - we also need to ensure that recyclable materials are actually recycled.
Landfills produce huge amounts of methane. Many of the bigger operators capture it to turn into energy, but they’re wasting about 80% of what’s available. It’s time Australia stepped up.
Banning single-use plastic bags makes sense, as long as it doesn’t usher in behaviours that are just as bad, or worse – like over-using heavier bags made of even more plastic.
After making worldwide headlines with the story of the Pacific “garbage island”, researchers were sent a photo of the same beach, white sand free of litter, as recently as 1992.
Australia sends 20 million tonnes of garbage to landfill every year. With thousands of sites across the nation, it’s hard to track exactly how many there are, where they are, and what’s filling them.
This episode explores how one person's waste can be another's treasure. We talk to scientists trying to eke something useful out of big piles of rubbish and discuss making the economy more circular.