Many Australians might agree: there’s certainly a lot of rubbish in this Federal election.

The construction industry’s canary in the mineshaft is its most visible flaw – waste. David Chandler suggests that a galvanising call to reduce its embedded carbon would modernise and lift its game.

Smart city technologies and the Internet of Things may have a downside that policy and processes are yet to address – the potential to add to growing volumes of ewaste.

Between 2017 and 2018, Queensland reported a 37 per cent increase in the amount of waste shipped in from interstate. This brought its annual reported waste to 10.9 million tonnes, a level it’s now looking to reduce with a new waste management and resource recovery strategy. 

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?