News & Media

E-waste in Australia: How businesses can recycle old computers

With e-waste in Australia growing at a faster rate than other types of waste, it’s important that we all do our bit to recycle old computers. As big users of technology, businesses are major creators of e-waste, and there are both moral and economic reasons as to why organisations need to have clear and effective policies when it comes to recycling e-waste. On the one hand, e-waste represents a major risk to the environment. On the other, it’s a source of valuable materials. And while t…

A win (and a loss) for local mercury recycling

Ecocycle recently achieved a small victory in helping to prevent the unnecessary shipment of mercury-containing waste overseas. A major natural gas producer voluntarily surrendered its hazardous waste export permit the evening before an Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing was set to revoke the permit. The proceedings were instigated by Ecocycle, Australia’s only fully licensed mercury recycling company. It was, however, only a partial win for the environment. Two foreign-owned co…

The Most Common Batteries You Can Recycle

Q. How many handheld batteries do Australians buy each year A. Over 400 million! Q. What happens to them when they no longer work? A. Most get dumped in landfill. Australia’s overall hand held battery recycling rate is less than 3%. For our most commonly used batteries, the recycling rate is around 2%. Q. What types of batteries are most commonly recycled? A. By number and by battery size, AA batteries the most commonly recycled battery. Next come AAA batteries then button cells (…

Where Can I Recycle Batteries In Australia?

Each year in Australia millions of batteries reach the end of their working life. Sadly, just 3% of handheld batteries (those weighting less than 5kg) are recycled. The rest, including many that contain toxic components, get dumped into landfill. It’s a sad state of affairs because not only is it possible to recycle batteries, with hundreds of battery collection points around Australia, it’s also simple and convenient. So what are the options for battery recycling in Australia? Small Batteri…

Why millennials care if your business recycles

Millennials roughly comprise the generation that is now aged between 20 and 35. They are major consumers of goods and services, and are increasingly taking on senior, decision-making positions in business, politics and the not-for-profit sector. In other words, they have clout, and one thing that informs their decision-making is corporate social responsibility (CSR). How big an issue is this? A Cone Communications study, suggested that when it comes to making purchasing decisions, deciding on…

Upcycling: Giving New Life To Things We Can’t Recycle

What happens to most of the stuff we drop in our council recycling bins? Glass jars, steel and aluminium cans get be turned back into new glass jars, steel and aluminium cans. Plastics, however, mostly get down-cycled – turned into lower value products that may not be further recyclable. Then there’s all the stuff we can’t put in the recycling bin, things like toothpaste tubes, plastic bags and old electrical goods. The majority of these just end up in landfill. Upcycling The Un-Recyclable …

How X-rays Created An Underground Music Industry

In the age of iTunes and Spotify it’s hard to imagine not being able to listen to the music of your choice. But it was a different story in the Soviet Union of the 1950s. If your tastes tended towards Elvis Presley or Ella Fitzgerald rather than classical or patriotic music, listening to your favourite songs could get you arrested. Some Of The First Pirated Music The risk of imprisonment wasn’t enough to deter a small band of inventive music lovers from creating an underground industry prod…

The Art Of Upcycling: Turning Junk Into Something Useful

Upcycling is the process of turning waste, often of the sort that is usually considered “unrecyclable”, into something that is useful or of value. A popular form of upcycling involves creating art with items of waste, and the results can be spectacular. They can also be practical, as Fennell’s bus shelter made out of a real school bus shows. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, fashions change with the wind and exceptional artists are few and far between. Many bits of junk simply get “up…

Plastic is expected to outweigh fish in oceans by 2050

Marine Plastic To Outweigh Fish By 2050

A report from the World Economic Forum predicts that, on current trends, by 2050 the amount of plastic in the oceans will outweigh all the fish. Think about it for a moment, and let the enormity of that sink in. This year, more than 8 million tonnes of plastic will ‘leak’ into the world’s oceans. That’s the equivalent of one garbage truck per minute. By 2030, on current trends, it will be two garbage trucks per minute. By 2050, if we don’t do something drastic, it will be equivalent to fou…

What Can I Recycle? There’s An App For That

Are aerosol cans recyclable? What about biscuit trays? How can you dispose of old paint and motor oil? Thanks to an app created by Eleanor Meyer and Stephen Halpin the answers are now at your fingertips. What’s more, the answers are tailored to your location. The story began when Stephen and Eleanor were paired in a competition run by Monash University and Oxfam a couple of years ago. Now Sustain Me, the free app that resulted from their collaboration, has gone national. Download it, set your…

What Types Of Batteries Can Schools Recycle?

Schools get through their fair share of batteries, and with the start of the new school year fast approaching, now is a good time for a refresher lesson on battery recycling. It’s an important lesson because each year in Australia less than 10% of discarded batteries get recycled. Aside from contributing to the mountains of waste going to landfill this also represents a waste of valuable resources, particularly when recycling batteries is both simple and convenient. By weight and number si…

How To Make The Most Of Your Waste

Did you know that between 1996-97 and 2012-2013, Australia’s economic production rose by 69%, but our waste production rose 154%? Instead of becoming more efficient at turning raw materials into economic value, we became less efficient. And what makes up that waste stream? It depends on the source. In municipal (mostly household) waste, food and garden waste make up nearly half of the volume, followed by paper. Paper is also a major component of commercial and industrial waste, along with met…

Will Australia Benefit From The Lithium Boom?

Within a few days of launch, more than 300,000 people put down deposits on the Tesla Model 3 electric car. While Tesla may be the highest profile electric car manufacturer at the moment, it is far from the only one. Many major brands are getting in on the act and there are plenty of reasons to believe that the future of motoring will be electric. The explosion in electric vehicle production is going to drive a massive expansion in lithium battery production, begging the question: does the wor…

Why recycling is a no-brainer for every Australian business

Recycling at home is easy. Just drop all recyclable items in the council-provided bin, and that’s it. The cost is covered by the annual council rates so we don’t give them a second thought. The situation is a bit different for businesses. Recycling is often a net cost and the natural inclination is to avoid it. But there are many reasons why businesses should recycle as much as possible, and, as it happens, a major reason is to improve the bottom line. 66% of customers prefer socially respon…

Mercury Vs Microbeads: A Tale Of Two Pollutants

The cosmetics industry is acting to phase out microbeads, but dentists are slow to clean up their act on mercury pollution. Microbeads Microbeads are tiny particles of plastic that are used in facial scrubs, soaps and toothpastes. The beads are made from the common plastic, high-density polyethylene. They are not intrinsically toxic, but when flushed down the drain they pass through sewage treatment plants and end up in the environment. There, birds, fish and other marine animals can ingest th…

Study monitors mercury in women of child-bearing age

When talking about global pollution problems it’s tempting to focus on big, impressive numbers but these tend to obscure the personal impacts that pollution can have. A new report, Mercury Monitoring in Women of Child-Bearing Age in the Asia and the Pacific Region, reveals the consequences of mercury pollution at a more personal scale. It does so by measuring mercury levels in 234 women from six countries in Asia and the Pacific: Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Nepal and …

Setting the facts straight about mercury recycling plants in Australia

The fact is that Ecocycle has been recycling a wide range of mercury-containing waste in Australia for more than 20 years. Ecocycle is 100% Australian owned, and has invested heavily in state-of-the-art equipment and safety measures to protect the health of its workforce and the communities in which it operates. Ecocycle has processed hundreds of tonnes of mercury catalyst waste and continues to do so, providing a sound local option for the Australian oil and gas industry. However, in s…

How to dispose of mercury-containing products in Australia

How do you dispose of mercury? If that’s not a question you’ve ever thought about, then it’s time you did. Nearly all of us use products that contain mercury, and the decisions we make at the end of the lifecycle of those products determines whether the mercury gets safely recycled and used again, or if it ends up polluting our already degraded environment. Identifying problem items The first step to the safe disposal of mercury is to identify the main mercury-containing products that that …

How much mercury does Ecocycle recycle?

Mercury is an element. It doesn’t break down or decompose or otherwise get turned into something else. It can form compounds with other elements, of varying degrees of toxicity and stability, but all the mercury in the world has been part of the Earth since it formed billions of years ago, and will still be around for billions of years yet. Because it’s toxic and permanent, the most sensible way to manage the threat posed by mercury is to keep it out of the natural environment as much as p…

What Can You Recycle This Christmas?

All the things that come with Christmas including the presents, the food, and your family are approaching fast. Unfortunately, this also includes the aftermath of waste (and possibly a hard pinch to your cheeks from an elderly aunt). While we can't help you with your cheeks, we can definitely help with the waste. We've put together a quick Christmas recycling guide for households to get them through the 2015 holiday season. Reusing And Recycling Wrapping Paper Christmas wrapping with metall…

Why Australian law needs to adapt to tackle e-waste issues

The amount of electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) in Australia is growing out of control. While some efforts are being made to tackle the e-waste mountain, recycling targets are often modest and only apply to selected categories of e-waste. Take the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS) as an example. Its target is to recycle 80% of computers and TV sets entering the waste stream each year, but that goal isn’t due to be met until 2026-2027, a full 10 years away. …

How we can stop Australia’s e-waste problem from getting worse

Australia has an e-waste problem. According to researchers at the University of New South Wales, we are generating e-waste three times faster than all other forms of waste. Electronic or electrical waste is any device that can connect to a power supply. In other words, if it has batteries or plugs into a power point, it’s destined to eventually become e-waste. The leader of the study, Professor Graciela Metternicht of the university’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Scienc…

5 things your local council should be recycling

We are all familiar with the usual recyclables that most councils collect – paper and cardboard, steel and aluminium cans and plastic bottles – but the possibilities don’t end there. Here are five types of waste that councils can (and should) be adding to their recycling lists. 1. Lighting waste Here, the focus is on recycling mercury-containing fluorescent lighting, mainly fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) to reduce mercury pollution in the environment. However, other …

10th anniversary of the adoption of Minamata

Recycling Dental Amalgam Couldn’t Be Easier

For over 20 years Ecocycle has been collecting and recycling the mercury from dental amalgam waste and to us, it's more than just a job. Each year an average Australian dental surgery produces around 1kg of amalgam waste containing about 500g of mercury metal. It takes just one gram of mercury to contaminate a billion litres of water, so you can understand why we are keen to ensure that all dental amalgam waste is properly recycled. From the dentist's point of view, the whole process could…

REES provides more opportunities for Australian electricians

SA’s REES Scheme Opens Up New Opportunities For Sparkies

The South Australian Retailer Energy Efficiency Scheme (REES) commenced on the 1st of January 2015, and will run until 2020. It requires larger energy retailers to help households and businesses save energy, opening up new opportunities for electrical contractors. REES Covers A Lot Of Options Under REES, energy retailers can offer a wide range of energy efficiency improvements, from installing or topping up insulation through window replacement to lighting replacement and upgrades. It is, h…

What Elephant Seals Teach Us About Our Mercury Waste

Scientists in California have discovered that seawater has become polluted by mercury 17 times above normal levels. Año Nuevo State Reserve has a large elephant seal population and local researchers found that when elephant seals go through their annual moult, the fur and skin they shed contained so much mercury that the level of mercury in the seawater surrounding their colony became poisonous. It’s a dramatic reminder of just how effectively marine animals take up and store mercury we du…

Dentists, When Was The Last Time Your Amalgam Filter Was Serviced?

Amalgam separators are so unobtrusive it’s easy to forget that they are there. Connected to the drainage system of dental chairs, all they need is the power of gravity to trap dental amalgam and prevent large quantities of mercury from entering the environment. Because your amalgam separator works away quietly in the background, many dental clinics forget that their dental amalgam filters need to be serviced and cleaned regularly. As it does its job collecting amalgam waste, your amalga…

Five Things Building Managers Can Do To Help The Environment

Commercial buildings are a significant source of waste, and in multi-tenanted buildings anything beyond basic waste collection is often left up to the individual businesses. However, it’s easy for building maintenance managers to introduce some simple initiatives that provide value to their clients and a payoff for the environment. 1. Champion A Battery Recycling Program Batteries contain a mix of valuable and toxic materials, yet Australia has a really low rate of battery recycling. It sho…

How The NSW Energy Savings Scheme (ESS) Benefits Sparkies

Electrical contractors in New South Wales wanting to boost business should take a look at the Energy Savings Scheme (ESS). It provides a significant financial incentive for businesses and home-owners to undertake activities that reduce their energy use. How ESS Works When an eligible activity that reduces electricity consumption is completed, energy savings certificates (ESCs) can be created. These are then sold to ‘liable parties’ such as electricity retailers. This means contractors can offe…

Australia, The Fourth Biggest Producer Of Municipal Waste: Let’s Do Better!

Did you know the average Australian produces 647 kg of municipal waste every year? According to a recent report, Australians are the fourth biggest producer of municipal waste in the world, only lagging behind Denmark, the US and Switzerland. While not all that waste comes from rubbish bins at our homes (some of it represents municipal waste created by businesses), it is still a sad indicator of just how wasteful we are, especially when comparing our results to Estonia and Poland, which pr…

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