An Opportunity Waiting !

We have come a long way from the days when everything went into the garbage can and the Garbo's took it to the tip on their weekly cycle.  Recycling is big business and today every household is encouraged to separate paper, cardboard and the various metals and plastics that can be melted down or otherwise treated to live again in a new form.

Recycling saves our natural resources.   Without recycling more trees would be harvested to produce paper and cardboard and more oil would be needed to extract the plastic that serves all the liquids sold in bottles.  This recycling industry is a big employer of labour and we have just added a surcharge to the price of most drinks to stimulate the return of glass and plastic bottles by way of " bottle banks " .

This giant industry has had a ready market for our compacted recycled material in China.  But is seems that China has developed its own recycling industries and from the new year they will not accept certain plastics and mixed paper waste.  They will only take cardboard less than 0.5 percent contaminated with other materials.

That will present our recycling industry with a dilemma.  Local laws prevent this material from being stockpiled because of its flammable nature.  It seems that the surplus will probably go to landfills because transporting it by truck to other states is more expensive than putting it in containers for shipment to China.

Much of this recycled cardboard is processed here in New South Wales by Visy but the loss of the China market will produce a glut beyond their capacity to handle.  We may see the collapse of the numerous small firms and charities who process this waste stream if their  market ceases to exist. Without an outlet for this waste the only option seems to be a return to landfills.

China's decision to ban imports actually delivers an opportunity here.  The product gained from recycling is much cheaper than that derived from new base materials and we already have in place the facility for collecting and collating the various materials that are suitable for reprocessing.  This delivers an investment opportunity to turn recycled waste into new products for both the home and export markets.

Once this material is in graded and compacted form it is suitable for mechanised processing and that is the industry which we lack.  This is an opportunity knocking on our door to create a state of the art industry to convert our waste - and probably process waste from other countries - to develop recycled products with a price advantage over new materials.

It presents an opportunity for our nascent robotics industry to automate this process to gain an overwhelming price advantage over new materials.  The scarcity and cost of most new materials makes recycling and reproduction a fast coming essential.

This China decision could be just the stimulus we need to make the investments necessary to create in Australia what China has been doing with our waste.  It opens the door for a whole new industry !