Recycling and Waste Management

The move to strike down a fee on waste exports is another blow by the Senate to Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.

Residents make a final plea to the Independent Planning Commission to reject a proposed $88-million plastic recycling plant in Moss Vale due to concerns over its possible environmental, health, and community impacts.

Before food even gets to the grocer, tonnes of plastic have been used to produce it on the farm. Now, Victorian farmers have built a recycling plant to tackle the issue — and it all started in the local pub.

Amee Dennis wants more people to question where their clothes and accessories come from and how they are made.

Satellites have long been used to track plastic in the ocean but have struggled to accurately spot pollution against a sandy background. Now a newly published algorithm might change all that, and lead to clean-up work all over the globe.

For the past 20 years, an energy project on the outskirts of Darwin has been quietly generating renewable electricity 24 hours a day and abating tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Australia's annual lithium-ion battery waste is tipped to hit 137,000 tonnes by 2035, and with 90 per cent of current waste going into landfill or getting stockpiled, there are urgent calls for dedicated recycling facilities. 

Huge data centres built for generative AI will generate millions of tonnes of electronic waste by 2030, the equivalent of discarding billions of smartphones each year, a study suggests.

A video of a lithium battery fire in the back of a south-west Sydney garbage truck has prompted warnings to residents who leave dangerous goods in suburban bins. 

The Plasrefine plant at Moss Vale, recommended for approval by the NSW Department of Planning, is expected to process 120,000 tonnes of mixed waste plastic.

There has been a long history of residents living with offensive odours in Boulder, which resulted in large protests in 2004.

Victoria's Container Deposit Scheme has recycled more than 900 million containers in 12 months. A company involved in running the scheme has confirmed it would like to see recycling rebates increased to align with refunds paid internationally, but the Victorian government says it has no plans to increase the refund offered or expand the type of containers received.

Brian Stewart put enough cans through a reverse vending machine to buy a caravan. But some argue he should have been paid more. 

As ratepayers in Western Australia's biggest regional city continue to pay millions to have waste trucked to alternative sites, managers of the local landfill site say it may never reopen.

Straw might seem like the last product you'd use if you wanted to protect your house from fire, but these straw panels, made from waste material, are a secret weapon against flames.

A decade-long plan to develop a landfill in Western Australia has moved a step closer to approval, with the environment minister assessing more than 100 objections and imposing stronger conditions.

Plans to build what would be Australia's largest plastics recycling plant in the NSW Southern Highlands have advanced despite community opposition and environmental concerns.

The Pan Pacific plant on Brisbane's southern fringe is expected to take apart the panels, recycling each individual element, which is "essential to the future of renewable energy in Australia".

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says Australians are wasting the one in every five shopping bags they bring home.

An ABC investigation has found the 180-hectare property on the Fraser Coast, marketed as part of an "eco-development", has become an alleged pollution time bomb, after being used to illegally dump more than 35,000 tonnes of waste.