Should Australia have a mandatory e-waste recycling program?
E-waste can be defined as anything with a power cord or battery that has reached the end of its useful life. It may still be in working order, but rendered obsolete by new technology. Just take a look around your home, workplace and local shopping centre and you’ll see thousands of items that are all […]
What can museums and galleries recycle?
Museums and galleries play a vital role in preserving our greatest treasures. Entirely consistent with their commitment to protecting the natural and artistic riches of our past is the responsibility of minimising their own contribution to ongoing environmental harm. A key component in achieving that goal is the implementation of effective recycling programs. Museum and […]
Where to take batteries, globes and e-waste for recycling
Wouldn’t it be great if recycling batteries, lighting waste and electronic waste (e-waste) was as easy as recycling our plastic bottles and newspapers? Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case but with just a little extra effort it is possible to make sure all these types of waste, and the nasty things they contain, are responsibly […]
Victorian Government announces date for ban on e-waste being sent to landfill
First announced in 2015, Victoria’s ban on disposal of e-waste to landfill recently moved a step closer. After extensive consultation with the community, councils and the recycling industry, the state government announced that the e-waste ban will commence on 1 July 2019. The ban involves both regulatory measures (e.g. rules that ban the disposal of […]
How do I recycle old TVs?
Recent years have seen major advances in the technology behind television. Gone are the old, bulky TV sets with many models today being not much thicker than a sheet of glass. Advances in transmission technology have also matched the evolution of screen technology – it’s all digital these days. These twin drivers of technological obsolescence […]
5 things a tradie might not know they can recycle
Whether you’re a sparky or a chippy, a dunny diver or a bricky, a lot of the waste that’s generated by the work you do can be recycled. In fact, over 90% of the waste generated on home construction sites can be recycled or diverted to other uses. It’s a similar story for demolition sites, […]
How do I safely recycle old hard drives?
When talking about the safe recycling of old computer hard drives there are three main issues to consider. Fortunately, they all have the same simple solution. Cyber safety Your old hard drive may contain a lot of information about you or your business, and obviously you don’t want your financial, health, corporate and personal information […]
Ecocycle provides recycling certificates to confirm safe destruction of e-waste, mercury-containing products
When you recycle with Ecocycle you can be assured that your waste will be processed to the highest standards of environmental and human safety. For additional reassurance, we provide recycling certificates on request. But what is a recycling certificate and why might you want one? A recycling certificate clearly documents what you have done to […]
How does Ecocycle collect, transport, store and recycle X-rays?
These days Ecocycle is best known as a specialist recycler of mercury, but when it began back in 1996 as Ecocycle Industries, the focus was all on recovery of silver from X-rays. As with other forms of imaging the X-ray world has now largely gone digital, but with vast numbers of old X-rays gathering dust […]
Should Australia introduce a blanket national waste levy?
In an attempt to boost recycling rates, many states across Australia have introduced waste levies. Collected on behalf of state governments by the operators of landfill sites, levies are an additional fee paid by dumpers on top of the usual disposal charges. Depending on the state, the origin of the waste (city or country) and […]
Does Tasmania have Australia’s worst waste system?
According to the Tasmanian Government’s submission to the Senate enquiry into the waste and recycling industry in Australia, the state generated over 636,000 tonnes of solid waste in the 2015-2016 year. Just 35% was recovered for recycling or composting, and Tasmania does not have a legislated waste levy. This has led to comparisons to the […]
How your workplace can run its own lighting recycling scheme
Want to buff up your environmental credentials by starting a lighting recycling program in your workplace? It’s easy! In fact, it takes just four simple steps to get up and running and protecting the environment. But why recycle lighting? The big issue is that fluorescent lighting has a dark side. It contains toxic mercury, a […]
Ecocycle partners with recycling plant in Papua New Guinea
Historically the story of international transfers of toxic waste has not been a happy one. The tendency has been for industrialised countries to ship waste to less developed nations where it is either dumped, often illegally, or manually broken down for recycling with no regard given to the health and safety of workers. Now, Australia’s […]
How to overcome objections to recycling in bigger business
Some large businesses can be more bureaucratic than governments. That can make it difficult to implement new ways of doing things, such as comprehensive recycling programs. On the plus side, when a really big company embraces a course of positive action, it can achieve more good than a hundred or a thousand smaller businesses. The […]
Seafood lovers eating oceans of mercury
The amount of plastic we consume from our seafood has been in the news lately, but long before anyone even considered the problem of marine plastic we were poisoning our seafood, and ourselves, with a far more toxic and persistent pollutant – mercury. We may not witness mass mercury poisoning on the scale of Minamata […]
Victorian dentists support reduction of mercury
The Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch (ADAVB) has put its weight behind the proposals the Federal Government has set out for its ratification of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, at least as they relate to dentistry. The ADAVB believes its members are already well placed to support the implementation of Convention [1]. Its Dentists for […]
Ecocycle forges partnership with Ecovantage
Lighting upgrade company Ecovantage has selected Ecocycle as its exclusive recycling partner. The agreement will see all lighting waste resulting from Ecovantage’s operations sent to Ecocycle for responsible recycling and mercury recovery. Ecovantage operates in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Its primary activity is the creation of energy efficiency certificates under each state’s […]
How government rebates help drive recycling initiatives
We have a long way to go in achieving a perfect recycling rate, and one way in which governments can help boost recycling is by providing rebates for particular activities. And, as it happens, recycling doesn’t even need to be the primary target of the rebates involved. Save energy, boost recycling Several state governments operate […]
Tasmanian regulators turn attention to mercury levels in water
Many Tasmanian dentists may be unaware that they are defined as “commercial trade waste generators”. The problem is dental amalgam. EPA Tasmania regulated that, from 1 October 2008, dental practices must employ dental amalgam separators. Since then, dentists have been required to keep mercury waste out of waterways, so the installation of amalgam separators in […]
How can I recycle my old computer?
Australia has a pretty poor record when it comes to recycling computers. Only about 10% get recycled, (and only about 1% of TVs), which adds up to a lot of electronic waste (e-waste) going to landfill. It defies common sense. At the point in the product life cycle when it is easiest and cheapest to […]
