It’s time to seriously talk rubbish. We produce almost three tonnes of waste per capita in Australia according to the latest annual figures of the 2022 National Waste Report, and that’s not counting the hundreds of thousands of extra tonnes generated by last year’s devastating flooding across the country.
Businesses and local government are playing an important part, from sustainable packaging to collection services and the adoption of circular economy policy on multiple levels, but our overall resource recovery (which is mostly recycling) sat at just 63 per cent in 2021, largely stagnant since the 2016-2017 figure of 61 per cent. In some categories, like plastic, it sat at a dismal 13 per cent. The rest went into landfill. [For complete statistics, see the 2022 National Waste Report].
“When it comes to waste, globally, we’re doing good things in some areas but it’s not enough,” says international expert Professor Linda Godfrey, keynote speaker at the upcoming Southern Cross University Impact Forum on Circular Economy.
“There’s this misnomer that the circular economy is about waste management, or worse, a synonym for recycling. The circular economy really allows us to rethink our relationship with resources more broadly, including waste. When it comes to resource use, we need to use less, we need to use longer, we need to use again, and we need to make clean, if we are to manage the future resource risks facing communities, businesses and countries.
“While recycling and waste beneficiation are critical to this, we know that we are not going to recycle our way out of the problems facing us today.”
Businesses and local governments have been wrestling with this concept of a circular economy for some time now, and its relevance to their operations. What does a circular economy offer the manufacturing sector, or agriculture sector? How do we create more resilient, liveable, sustainable cities?
The upcoming Impact Forum at Southern Cross University’s Northern Rivers campus will provide insights and showcase the successes, technologies, policies and the know-how to help scale circular economy interventions in the region, working closely with businesses and local councils. The Forum is supported by Investment NSW’s Boosting Business Innovation Program.
The speaker line-up is a who’s-who of the leading voices in the field – at a state, national and international level. The speakers will cover the state-of-play with regards to circular economy before diving deeper into the specifics of accelerating circular economy adoption with technical advice, policy analysis and best practice case studies aimed at all levels of business and government.
Register here for the Circular Economy Impact Forum
