26 June 2007:
Tens of thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste are
being dumped in urban rubbish tips around Australia each year,
posing a threat to people’s health and the environment.
The toxic materials are being thrown into household
garbage bins and ending up in landfill sites not designed to take
hazardous waste.
That warning will be issued at the Contamination 07
conference in Adelaide today by Australian waste-to-resources
company, Global Renewables.
“On OECD figures, each Australian produces
around 690 kilos of municipal solid waste per year – making
us the second most wasteful country on earth,” Global
Renewables spokesman Casey Cahill says.
“This rubbish mostly goes to landfills, which
on its own is a loss of re-usable resources, and unfortunately the
garbage also contains significant amounts of contaminants –
our research shows contaminants make up around 3 per cent of the
municipal waste stream, with each Australian producing an average
of 20 kilograms of hazardous waste a year.”
The hazardous items present in household waste
collections include lead acid car batteries, mobile phones, TVs and
computers that contain toxic heavy metals, pesticide, paint and
household chemicals, gas cylinders, clinical waste from health
services and asbestos.
“People assume that when you put something
toxic in a dump it stays there. Unfortunately that isn’t
always the case – it can escape into the air or groundwater,
while the tip itself will remain a contaminated site for
decades.”
Mr Cahill says Australians need to be educated
about the dangers of placing hazardous materials in household
garbage collection services, while advanced waste treatment
facilities can also be used as a gatekeeper to help reduce the
amount of toxic or hazardous materials going to landfill sites.
“We need to place a buffer between the
household bin and the council burial ground. Advanced waste
treatment technology provides that opportunity,” he said.
“Our company, Global Renewables, takes
the view that waste is a resource that can be sorted and much of it
usefully recycled. Our experience is that around 70 per cent of the
contents of the average household garbage bin can be recycled or
used for beneficial purposes such as renewable energy or organic
soil conditioners.”
Global Renewables operates a $100m advanced waste
treatment facility at Eastern Creek in Sydney, using mechanical and
biological methods to recover useful resources like plastic, glass,
paper and metal, turn food and garden waste into high quality
compost, and generate green energy from bio-gas.
The company’s UR-3R Process® will also be
used to treat the household waste of 1.4 million people in
Lancashire.
“At Eastern Creek our pre-sort system is
currently removing around 60 to 80 lead acid car batteries a day,
which provides a snapshot of the hazardous pollution that is
entering the municipal solid waste stream ,” Mr Cahill
says.
Used lead acid batteries contain lead compounds
that are highly toxic for humans, animals and plants.
“This reinforces Global Renewables’
view that all municipal solid waste should be pre-sorted before
landfilling to remove hazardous materials and limit the potential
for them to infiltrate the soil, water and air.”
Mr Cahill says the presence of hazardous and toxic
materials is just another reason why Governments should be taking
steps to drastically reduce the amount of waste being sent to
landfill in Australia.
“With all the debate on climate change, we
should not forget that a tonne of waste dumped in a tip today will
still be emitting greenhouse gases 50 years from now,” he
said.
It is estimated that improved resource recovery and
waste management practices could reduce Australia’s net
greenhouse gas emissions by 6.7 per cent.
“The practice of landfilling is
unsustainable.”
