Recycling Activity in South Australia 2010-11

Executive Summary: Resource Recovery & Diversion - 1. During the financial year 2010-11 South Australia’s (SA’s) recycling industries reported 4.31 million tonnes of material diverted to resource recovery. (a) Table 1 and Figure 1 (overleaf) reports SA’s resource recovery and landfill disposal data for 2010-2011 and the same data from the preceding 5 years and SA’s first survey (base) year, 2003-04. (b) Resource recovery data in report are presented in accordance with the new National Waste and Recycling Reporting Guidelines (DSEWPC, 2010): Recycling– includes most of the traditionally reported material categories; Separately reported recycling– data reported for recycled soil, sand, rock and fly ash materials. 2. In 2010-11 material diverted to resource recovery has increased by 56% compared with 2.76 million tonnes of resource recovery reported in SA last financial year (2009-10). This significant increase is attributed to substantial resource recovery of waste fill (approximately an extra 1.1 million tonnes) which took place during 2010-11 at several major infrastructure projects in SA, including the Adelaide Desalination Plant and Royal Adelaide Hospital. 3. In 2010-11, waste accepted by SA landfills increased to 1.08 million tonnes (an increase of 4.7% from 2009-10). This increase in landfill waste tonnage is also linked to major infrastructure projects in SA that contributed large volumes of contaminated fill to landfill. 4. Despite an increase in landfill disposal, the higher resource recovery achieved during 2010-11 produced a significant increase in the recovery (or diversion) rate1 for SA (from 72.7% in 2009-10) to 79.9%. (a) It is anticipated that the high level of recovery seen in 2010-11 will not be repeated in 2011-12 as these major infrastructure projects are completed and relative levels of resource recovery and landfill disposal return to more normal levels. Even with the effects of these infrastructure projects being removed from SA’s 2010-11 resource recovery data, the underlying recovery rate would be at least 74.8%2, still an increase from 2009-10. (b) Furthermore, it should be recognised that such an increase (or decrease) reflects the inherent volatility of annual resource recovery data, which can fluctuate from year to year depending on economic cycles and activities occurring in SA. 1 Recovery rate (also referred to as diversion rate) is defined as the proportion (by weight) of material resource recovered for re-processing as a percentage (%) of total waste being generated – as defined by the National Waste and Recycling Reporting Guidelines (DSEWPC, 2010). 2 Approximated by subtracting 1.1 million tonnes of estimated extra soil (resource recovered from major infrastructure projects during 2010-11) from both total recycling and waste generated line in Table 1, i.e. Diversion Rate = 3.21 million tonnes/4.294 million tonnes ~ 74.8%.