How do we reach 80% resource recovery by 2030, the need for policy change across the country, creating circular economies and technological innovation were some of the key themes to come from the inaugural Australian Resource Recovery Conference in Adelaide recently.
The event, hosted by the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia, saw more than 200 industry professionals come together, with ResourceCo the platinum sponsor.
ResourceCo Energy Chief Executive Officer Henry Anning opened the conference, before taking part in a panel discussion regarding the goal of achieving 80% resource recovery by 2030.
Henry emphasised the need for policy changes across the country if the current landfill diversion rate of 63% has a chance of increasing to the target of 80%.
“The current state of various government policies across the country that impact the sector, particularly landfill levies, will continue to be a major hurdle for the resource recovery industry until change is made,” he said.
“The positive is that these challenges can be overcome, it just needs a bit of work, of which our sector stands ready to assist governments with.”
Adding to the call for policy action was, Jim Fairweather, Chief Executive Officer of ResourceCo’s tyre recycling business, Tyrecycle, who highlighted examples of the very real and positive impact government procurement and market development has on industry-led recycling infrastructure investment.
Jim touched on the work being done by Tyrecycle and the uptake of products such as crumb rubber in key road infrastructure, particularly in Western Australia.
“Three years ago we didn’t sell a gram of crumb rubber in the West Australian market, however this year we will probably end up selling about 4000 tonnes and that is only made possible by government procurement and Main Roads WA working so hard to make sure that they specify crumb rubber in their road programs,” he said.
“It shows you that when governments buy recycled goods, industry will respond and invest and sell those products into those markets.
“Later this year we’ll be opening Australia’s first dedicated off the road (OTR) tyre recycling facility in Pt Hedland, which will significantly increase the economic viability of the sustainable management of end-of-life OTR tyres, which is a key issue in the busy mining region.”
ResourceCo Manager of Environmental Development Mitchell Bacon provided a detailed presentation on breaking down the barriers for recycled products through verification.
Mitchell spoke about the importance of independent verification of recycled product testing results and field trials, highlighting the work ResourceCo is doing with Environmental Product Declarations.
“Customers are seeking to be equipped with tools that can provide verified evidence of environmental performance, so we have developed Environment Product Declarations for our recycled aggregate products and recycled glass sand,” he said.
ResourceCo and Tyrecycle also had the opportunity to have exhibitions stands, with staff kept busy over the two days with plenty of questions from delegates.
As a leader within Australia’s resource recovery industry, the team at ResourceCo takes great pride in contributing to the advancement of sector.
Opportunities like the Australian Resource Recovery Conference enable the sharing of learnings and offer market-orientated insights to developers of government policy and decision makers.
