What do we do with all that ewaste piling up in our closets and other dark and forgotten spaces? Luckily growing demand for a solution is once again throwing up creative ideas, such as IoT sensors made out of recyclable materials.

Australia is on the road to a more sustainable heavy construction materials industry, with the Victorian government handing out grants worth over $1.5 million this year for innovative road surface projects.

In February last year China stopped importing many recyclables from overseas. It left Australia without an export market for its waste – as much as 1.25 million tonnes of material.

Benjamin Young’s business producing reusable coffee cups is staggering: it’s grown 600 per cent last year and the signs are still good for growth and innovation, with new products such as reusable shopping bags and straws on the way.

The Balinese government has outlawed single use plastics in the wake of a rising rubbish problem. Governor I Wayan Koster announced the ban last month, stating there would be serious penalties for noncompliance following a six month grace period. 

One investor in the Northern Territory has faith that the recycling industry can change in his patch. In fact he’s just invested $3.5 million in a new facility. Growing pains…

The latest National Waste Report was released this month, and the data shows a worrying trend for the property sector.

Would corporate Australia continue to function if climate change compromised coffee harvests to the point it became scarce and therefore unaffordable for most of us?

Aside from the few tyres that are turned into park swings or are ground up for soccer ground surfaces, most tyres from Australian cars and trucks go to waste or are exported overseas to be turned into fuel.

NSW has a new crack team out to find and prosecute the worst criminals in the waste industry, some of whom are serial offenders. But no need to look complacent, apparently one in three of us has illegally dumped at some time.

Have you spied kids or older folk in NSW rifling through your yellow top bins and stealing away bottles and other containers so they cash them in at the container deposit depot?

Waste to energy plants have been greeted with great scepticism and knocked back in some areas, but what if they can produce “green cement” and what if the fumes can be drastically reduced?

New national waste targets, including the phasing out of “problematic and unnecessary” single-use plastic packaging sound right on cue with the current mood among voters and consumer. But key industry players and some state government leaders wondering who will foot the bill? 

Food packaging remains a sticking point for the circular economy. Plastic is so entrenched in the food production cycle that avoiding it when sourcing groceries and takeaway food is almost impossible.

Maybe it’s more a quiet revolution, rather than a war, moving through the industry as the property titans take up the issue of waste.