Australia – new report shows improved recycling can save 38 million tonnes CO2

Former Premier of NSW Bob Carr has argued that Governments serious about providing adequate solutions to climate change should see that recycled or recovered waste should be included in carbon emission trading schemes. Mr Carr, chair of the advisory board to the Australian Climate Institute, said a new report produced a compelling argument for industry and government to step up waste management and resource recovery with the aim of cutting a slice out of Australia‘‘s greenhouse gas emissions.



Commissioned by the Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) and SITA Environmental Solutions, the report by Warnken ISE shows improving waste management and recycling could deliver an abatement or saving of nearly 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – a 6.7 percent cut in national greenhouse emissions.



“The potential savings in greenhouse gas emissions are the equivalent of offsetting the emissions from around 8 million cars on Australian roads”, Mr Carr said.



“Making waste part of trading schemes would put a monetary value on one of the positive benefits of resource recovery and provide additional support for these technologies and practices”.



The bulk of the savings in carbon emissions comes from improved “mining” of the gas from the existing landfills, saying no to landfills in the future and recycling products with high embodied energy.



Mike Ritchie, NSW President of the Waste Management Association of Australia, said that any Government would need to work with the States to establish a regulatory framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from landfills and to encourage investment in recycling infrastructure.



“The report shows there is a significant need for seed funding to encourage new technologies to reduce the 15 million tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted by landfills nationally and to improve recycling rates, particularly business recycling”, Mr Ritchie said.



Making waste part of a carbon trading scheme would monetise the positive benefits of resource recovery and provide additional revenue for new waste treatment technologies and systems.



“Biologically active materials such as cardboard, food, timber and garden waste degrade in landfills giving off methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas with 25 times the greenhouse potency of carbon dioxide. It is essential that organic material be diverted from landfills or that landfills are required to install gas capture systems”, Mr Ritchie said.



The research paper shows greenhouse gases can be abated by:



§ Improving gas capture from existing landfills (saving 8.5 million tonnes CO2e)



§ Avoiding future landfill emissions by limiting organic waste to landfill (13 mt)



§ Saving energy by recycling materials which involve a high energy during manufacture eg aluminium (11 mt)



§ Using renewable fuels made from waste (2.6 mt)



§ Converting suitable waste to “biochar” for land application (1.7 mt)



§ Using biodiesel for waste recovery and waste management vehicles (0.2 mt)



Costs of delivering the savings are a fraction of the $110 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent – the Stern review‘‘s estimate of the cost of climate change to society.



Marginal costs of carbon abatement are $35 a tonne of CO2 equivalent for metropolitan solid waste and $29 a tonne for commercial and industrial waste materials, cheaper abatement options than carbon capture and storage and biomass renewable energy.



“One solution to avoiding landfill is to adopt the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) scheme operating in the UK which limits the amount of waste which can be disposed of to landfill.



“Once a council exceeds its limit it must buy permits from other councils which are operating below the cap set for them. It has been in ope