News and Media

The Effects Of Mercury On Water

Mercury never goes away. It just gets moved around, changing from one chemical form to another, with water playing a major role in both the transport and transformation of mercury. Once mercury is released into waterways it can end up just about anywhere. Ocean currents can carry it around the world, it can evaporate into the atmosphere, and be deposited back into the oceans or onto land. Water also plays an essential role in the transformation of metallic mercury into its far more dang…

Mercury study finds safer way for small-scale miners to extract gold

Artisanal or small-scale gold miners frequently use mercury in their gold extraction process. The gold-mercury mix, or amalgam, is then heated, usually over an open flame, to vapourise the mercury and leave behind the purified gold. This a potentially deadly activity, with the miner breathing in mercury fumes and the rest settling on and contaminating the surrounding soil and getting flushed into waterways. In Papua New Guinea (PNG) alone, tens of thousands of people make a living from …

How does Ecocycle collect, transport, store and recycle e-waste?

Ecocycle started life as a specialist recycler of mercury-containing waste – mostly dental waste and fluorescent lighting waste. To ensure safe handling of these hazardous materials we created an Australia-wide logistics network for collecting waste by the cardboard box load up to truckloads. With trucks already on the road it was a simple step to expand our collection to other types of related waste, such as batteries and more bulky e-waste including computers and televisions. Collecti…

How the money raised by waste levies should be spent

Most states and territories in Australia charge levies on waste that goes to landfill. The aim? Less waste to landfill and more to recycling. Naturally, one would expect the money raised by these levies to be used to support recycling, but that isn’t always (or even often) the case. Take Victoria as an example – the 2017 State Budget papers showed the state raised $200 million in waste levies. That could have given a huge boost to recycling, but instead most of the money was spent on timbe…

How do I recycle white goods?

White goods are large electrical items used in the home and yep, you guessed it, they are often white in colour. To be a bit more specific, white goods comprise refrigerators, washing machines, clothes dryers, ovens and stovetops, microwave ovens and air conditioners. On the one hand, they are attractive objects for recycling because they contain a lot of steel, aluminium and copper that can be extracted and reused. On the other hand, they are often big and heavy and hard to fit into yo…

What can you recycle on a building site?

With much of the construction industry embracing the philosophy of ‘green building’ there’s growing pressure on building site managers to get serious about recycling. More than 90% of construction and demolition waste can be recycled – everything from concrete rubble and steel reinforcing to timber offcuts and bits of PVC pipe – but the diversity of waste can create a bit of a challenge for building site managers who want to maximise their recycling performance. Good news: for several type…

How your workplace can run its own e-waste recycling scheme

These days you’d be hard pressed to find a business that doesn’t rely on computers, printers and mobile phones. And like any electronic items these either break down or become technologically obsolete, adding to Australia’s (and the world’s) growing mountain of electronic waste. E-waste contains toxic materials, such as lead and mercury, as well as valuable components including gold and steel. The upshot is that recycling e-waste makes sense for both environmental and economic reasons, …

How Australian schools can dispose of and recycle e-waste

The dark side of the glittering screens that school teachers and students rely on is that they eventually fail or become obsolete. They then add to the mountain of electrical and electronic waste (e-waste), much of which ends up being dumped into landfill. Aside from things with screens – computers, tablets, phones, calculators, TVs – schools also depend on fluorescent lighting tubes and compact fluorescent lamps, photocopiers, batteries, power tools, lab equipment and numerous other elect…

How Ecocycle is working closely with Indonesia to tackle mercury recycling

With more than 260 million people, Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest by population. It’s also developing rapidly, and much of its economic activity is illuminated my mercury-containing fluorescent lighting. Indonesia is also home to significant oil and gas extraction industries that generate mercury-bearing waste, and artisanal gold mining remains a major cause of mercury poisoning. Ecocycle, Australia’s most experienced and only fully licensed recycler of mercury, is now working …

How Australian businesses can dispose of and recycle light bulbs

Around Australia the main method of dealing with lighting waste is to dump it in a hole in the ground, cover it over and forget about it. That’s despite the fact that the majority of lighting waste being dumped in landfills contains the toxic metal mercury. Over time, mercury can leach from landfill into waterways, then into the ocean before ending up in the fish we eat. Change, however, is coming. South Australia is leading the way, and banned the disposal of fluorescent lighting an…

How to properly dispose of different light bulbs: incandescent, CFL/fluorescent, halogen, LED

How you can best dispose of lighting waste depends on two things: a) the type of lighting and b) the amount of lighting waste you or your organisation needs to dispose of. Let’s start with what to do with smaller (household or small business) quantities of lighting waste. How to dispose of incandescent light bulbs These old-style light globes can safely be disposed of in your normal rubbish. For safety, wrap in newspaper or other packaging material before putting old incandescent light g…

Ecocycle provides certificates for lighting recycling

It’s reasonable to expect that materials sent for recycling will, in fact, be recycled. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, with some waste types being illegally exported or ending up in landfill. To assure clients that their waste is recycled, Ecocycle provides recycling certificates on request. These certificates meet a number of needs: They provide evidence of compliance with internal corporate recycling targets For companies fulfilling tender requirements for lighting…

LED lighting market to grow rapidly by 2023

The LED lighting market is set to rapidly expand, indicating a shift away from incandescent and fluorescent lighting. According to P&S Market Research, the global LED lighting market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.6% between 2017 and 2023. That will see this sector of the lighting market valued at US$70.2 billion (A$95 billion) in five years’ time. This indicates a huge switch from incandescent and fluorescent lighting. Not surprisingly, this trend is lar…

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 destined to become e-waste: ovens and fridges, computers and phones, light globes and fluorescent tubes, hair dryers and power tools, remote controls and the occasional electric vehicle. E-…

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 gallery managers will be well acquainted with the usual recyclables such as paper and cardboard, along with other high…

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 recycled. Here’s where you can take batteries, globes and e-waste for recycling: Batteries All batteries contain useful materials that can be recycled, often …

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 e-waste in landfill and specify how it is to be handled) and non-regulatory measures, such as upgrades to the e-waste collection network and a…

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 have generated a deluge of old televisions, many of which are left on nature strips to be vandalised, or dumped into landfill. Either way, that…

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, and for the waste that’s created during a building’s lifetime. So before you bin anything, take a moment to find out if it can be recycled. Here are a few things that can be recycled that you might …

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 ending up in the wrong hands. It isn’t enough to just delete files, and even reformatting your hard drive may not prevent an expert from recovering yo…

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 dispose of your waste in an environmentally sound manner. It details the type of waste that we receive from you (e.g. e-waste, fluorescent tub…

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 in homes and hospitals, medical clinics and factories, we continue to receive a steady stream of old X-ray films for recycling. We also accept the developer and fixer chemicals used to pr…

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 the material involved, most levies fall in the range of $50 to $150 per tonne. The idea is that, by making landfill more expensive as a disposal option, recycling…

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 situation in Queensland, where the lack of a waste levy has been blamed for the Sunshine State becoming a dumping ground for interstate waste. While …

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 pollutant that contaminates the environment and even ends up in the fish on our dinner plates. Recycling prevents that pollution and recovers mercury for safe r…

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 largest and most experienced recycler of mercury-containing waste, Ecocycle, is partnering with Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) world-class waste and environmenta…

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 question is: how can one person influence the direction of a large organisation? Here are some ideas. Understand your company’s environmental policy. Someti…

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 disease anymore, but in the United States more than 5% of women of childbearing age have blood mercury levels that put their children at risk of suffering from neurodevelopmental…

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 Cleaner Water Program ran from 2008 to 2011 and saw the installation of more than 700 amalgam separators across Victoria. It’s estimated thes…

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 energy efficiency scheme through replacing existing lighting with more efficient LED lighting.…