9 September 2008
Recycling
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After you've separated out the plastics, papers, bottles and cans and wheeled the bin out to the kerb, do you ever wonder what happens to the contents? Our record on newspaper recycling is among the best in the world and we're now recycling 600 million more aluminium cans than we were 10 years ago. Paper, plastic and glass are the most frequently recycled materials because they're collected through local kerbside recycling services and about 90 per cent of households have access to them.
What's emerging as an increasing problem though is e-waste. Each year, Australians buy more than 2.4 million personal computers and more than a million televisions. Add to that the fact that there are more mobile phones in this country than there are people and you get an idea of the size of the problem. So how do we deal with our increasing waste stream and whatever happened to the first two Rs in the three step campaign: reduce, reuse and recycle?
Guests
Ruth Lane
Senior Lecturer, Environment and Planning, RMIT University.
Nick Harford
Environment manager, Visy
Helen Lewis
Consultant, Sustainable Packaging Alliance, adjunct professor RMIT University
Dick Gross
Chair of the National Packaging Covenant Council
Further Information
Presenter
Paul Barclay
Story Researcher and Producer
Debra McCoy
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