landfill – Michmutters

K’gari (Fraser Island) is Queensland’s small slice of paradise with a massive problem.

The heritage-listed island threatens to become a victim of its own success as millions of tourists are lured across the water each year.

But they’re leaving piles of rubbish in their wake, and overflowing waste stations on the island need urgent upgrades.

“People go over there with cheap camping gear, and when they finish with their holiday, they just throw it in the tip,” Fraser Coast councillor Darren Everard said.

“It is a fragile location, and it needs to be respected.”

Clearing the mess does not come cheap either.

It costs more than $400,000 a year to cart rubbish from tourists and locals off the island via a barge to the mainland, prompting the Fraser Coast Regional Council to plead with the public to follow a “pack in, pack out” rule.

“If you’re taking a product onto the island, you should be taking it off with you as you go… that is best practice,” Mr Everard said.

Landfill and large tip bins surrounded by green trees and shrubs. — A Wongari or dingo fence is all that separates the dump site from the surrounding bush.(ABC Wide Bay: Lucy Loram)

Not a Happy Valley with dump nearby

In the tiny township of Happy Valley on the eastern side of K’gari, a dump site lies just a stone’s throw from the nearest home.

“It is 50 meters from a house. It’s about 20m from a recreation reserve where there’s a picnic table, so it is not ideal,” said Scott Bell, who has lived at Happy Valley for 36 years.

With just a dingo fence separating the landfill from the forest, Mr Bell said the Happy Valley station was a major concern for locals.

“Properties that are very close have got to contend with the smell coming from the tip — and the flies,” he said.

“The blowflies have become quite horrendous in town … I think everyone recognizes it’s not an ideal situation to have that rubbish tip so close to the township.”

An elderly man in a blue shirt and a broncos cap smiles. — Mr Bell says it is more than just a little township’s problem.(ABC Wide Bay: Lucy Loram)

The station is one of three landfill sites on the island, including Eurong and Orchid Beach, comprised of tip bins that collect rubbish not just from the townships but from K’gari’s mass tourist population.

“We get things like commercial kitchens being dumped there, national parks have to dump a lot of rubbish just left at camp sites, so it really is more than just a little township’s problem,” Mr Bell said.

Beautiful place facing challenges

The Happy Valley Community Association is working with the Fraser Coast Regional Council to identify alternative sites for the dump, but it could take some time before the month is addressed.

A line of tip bins in an open forest area. — The landfill is removed from the island in tip bins that are transported to the mainland via a barge.(ABC Wide Bay: Lucy Loram)

Mr Everard said waste transfer on K’gari was a work in progress that would begin with a 10-year waste management and resource recovery strategy.

“The island is a beautiful place and has a number of challenges, so we want to try to ensure that we get that waste removal more workable and less invasive on the island,” he said.

“We have got a bit of work to do, so we’re going to start with the Eurong Transfer Station, and then we’ll move to improve the facilities at Happy Valley and Orchid Beach.”

The upgraded station at Eurong will be capped to mitigate legacy waste and will feature new bays for stainless steel waste and recycling bulk bins when completed in 2024.

Australians spend billions of dollars on beauty products every year, but the leftover packaging mostly ends up in landfill.

It’s estimated that more than 10,000 tonnes of cosmetic waste goes to landfill every year in Australia, because make-up products aren’t generally accepted in kerbside recycling.

That’s because they are too small to be sorted at a regular facility and often contain complex and mixed materials as well as remnant product, which makes them tricky to recycle alongside regular glass and plastics.

So what should you be doing with your old make-up and perfumes?

What are companies doing?

More Australian and international beauty brands and retailers are now offering take-back schemes where you can return used beauty products in-store so they can be recycled.

The products, including skin cream tubes, plastic and metal eyeshadow palettes, foundation and fragrance bottles are sorted into different waste streams like glass, metal, soft and hard plastics.

They are then sent off for processing to be transformed into other products.

What the waste ends up as depends on the company that is doing the recycling and what the packaging was made out of.

Australian recycling company Close the Loop turns plastics into an asphalt additive used in roads.

It said some hard plastics could be shredded and used as a concrete additive, while glass could be crushed and used as a sand replacement for buildings in the construction industry.

Other companies like TerraCycle say their recycled plastic waste can be used in garden beds, outdoor playgrounds and fences.

Packaging for cosmetics and beauty packaging can be recycled into a variety of uses depending on the material used.(abcnews)

Who is doing the recycling?

At this stage, it is private companies and not local councils taking charge of recycling in the beauty and cosmetics industries.

Close the Loop recently announced a cosmetics collection trial with retail giant Myer, where consumers can bring back any used make-up items to a participating store until mid-September.

MAC Cosmetics is also part of that trial, which will help investigate how feasible a national beauty recycling scheme is.

The Close the Loop trial has been funded by a million-dollar grant from the federal government.

A spokesperson from the federal Department of Environment said it was funding the trial because cosmetics were difficult to recycle “through normal processes.”

“The project will establish a cosmetic recycling scheme by developing a comprehensive collection network that will collect, process, and recycle waste from cosmetic makeup products,” the spokesperson said.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

How do we sort out Australia’s waste problem?

Major beauty retailers such Mecca, David Jones, Jurlique, Olay, Sukin and Schwarzkopf are also investing in recycling schemes, partnering with international company TerraCycle.

Jean Bailliard is the chief executive of TerraCycle Australia/NZ, which recently partnered with French multinational Sephora.

“We form partnerships with brands and retailers like Sephora that pay for the collection and recycling,” he said.

It means the brands foot the bill.

“We’re not relying on the value of the plastic to cover our costs,” he said.

“We get that funding from the industry that wants to do the right thing.”

Jean Bailliard says customers can be confident Terracycle is recycling beauty products as their partner brands are paying for it.(abcnews)

Jennie Downes, a researcher from Monash University’s Sustainable Development Institute, said recycling cosmetic products was in its early days and not yet economically viable.

“It’s difficult for [new] recycling schemes to compete against the huge amount of plastic that is currently being produced and pumped out onto the market,” she said.

She said there was also an issue with whether there was enough demand for the recycled products, which is not only a challenge for the beauty industry but for recycling in general Australia-wide.

What can’t be recycled?

Different schemes have different rules, so it is best to check with the place you are returning your packaging to see what things they can take.

Generally, take-back schemes can take things like hand or body creams, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, or any other hair or skincare products.

They have difficulty accepting aerosols and nail polish, which are made up of complex materials and can also be flammable.

TerraCycle and its partner brands won’t accept aerosols or nail polish as it said they are difficult to transport via post.

TerraCycle also said it was only able to recycle empty packaging.

The government-funded Myer trial with Close The Loop is testing accepting products like aerosols and nail polish, to see if they can work out how to safely transport and recycle them.

That trial will also accept packaging with remnant products, though most take-back schemes require the returned products to be empty.

Recycling schemes are often limited in what they will accept, with some products like aerosols and nail polish often too difficult to recycle.(abcnews)

How do I know if the products are actually being recycled?

This is a tricky one, but researcher Jenni Downes said it was best to have faith that companies were doing the right thing and to build a habit of trying to recycle products that you might have tossed in the bin before.

“There definitely is some skepticism and mistrust out there, that businesses may be greenwashing,” she said.

“Being transparent about how much is being returned, what it’s been turned into, whether it’s happening locally or overseas, I think this sort of information really increases people’s trust.”

Ms Downes said in terms of the numbers of recycled products or the types of things they are turned into, the numbers will probably be small at the beginning.

“That’s okay, because they are new,” she said.

“But they can tell that story as well as releasing the data … because if they don’t share that information, it’d be difficult for customers to trust them.”

She said the other thing worth thinking about was switching to refillable products, which were growing in popularity on the market.

“Recycling is definitely a last line of defense and looking at things further up the hierarchy, like reuse and refillable packing would also be great,” she said.

Key points:

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories