A new roadmap setting out strategies for creating jobs and reclaiming billions in economic value from plastic, glass, paper and tyres currently going into landfill has been issued by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Chief Executive of CSIRO, Larry Marshall said the roadmap, National Circular Economy Roadmap, found that innovation was crucial to realising the largest economic gains, which would come by designing new products and materials, and embracing new business models to create markets for wastage.
“This could more than triple job creation from resource recovery in Australia, where the recycling sector currently generates 9.2 jobs per 10,000 tonnes of waste, compared with only 2.8 jobs for the same amount of waste sent to landfill,” Dr Marshall said.
“Increasing Australia’s recovery rate by just five per cent would add an estimated $1 billion to GDP,” he said.
“The Australian Government’s ban on the export of waste last year creates an opportunity for a new circular economy strategy that turns landfill into economic returns.”
Dr Marshall said science and technology could drive Australia’s next wave of economic opportunities.
“Science can transform our economy into a circular one that renews and reuses what we previously discarded, and indeed a virtuous circle that creates higher paid jobs, advances new Australian technology, and protects our environment,” he said.
“We’re on a mission to make it real.”
He said the practical path laid out in the Roadmap was part of CSIRO’s mission-led focus on using science to solve the greatest challenges while driving Australia’s economic recovery and building future resilience.
Dr Marshall said the Roadmap identified six elements for moving towards a circular economy including retaining material through use and collection; upscaling and innovating recycling technologies; innovating and collaborating in design and manufacture; developing markets for secondary materials and the products that use them; streamlining nationally consistent governance; and securing a national zero waste culture.
The 20-page Roadmap was commissioned by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources and can be downloaded at this PS News link.
