Who Is Right On E-Waste, Vic Or NSW? ♻️ Podcast Ep. 32 Don’t Be A Waster

Who Is Right On E-Waste, Vic Or NSW? ♻️ Podcast Ep. 32 Don’t Be A Waster

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Transcript: Who Is Right On E-Waste Vic Or NSW?

Hello and welcome to another edition of our podcast on all things recycling: Recycle Don’t be a Waster! In today’s episode, we want to touch on E-Waste. Somebody asked me the question recently, that do I think New South Wales… should they ban uh… Lao e… West going to landfill in the similar way that Victoria, the state of Victoria, has and a bit of the background on this.

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Victoria banned e-waste, computers, laptops, and TVs and anything really going to landfill from July 2019. So roughly, three years ago, New South Wales, as far as I can see, does not have specific legislation against that. So this basically means that in theory, it is illegal in, you know, in Victoria to put E-Waste into your garbage bin, your general waste bin for collection, you know, and does that really make it a big difference? or what does it actually do, you know?

I suppose I haven’t been able to see any information about anybody being prosecuted for putting, you know, batteries or E-Waste or computers in their General Waste. And it hasn’t been on the news – I haven’t been able to find any articles about it, so to some extent, is it really is it being enforced? Is it being, um… is it creating an issue? Or, you know, is it even been enforced down in Victoria? Or is it more just like a guidance and something that, you know, people with more important stuff to do than look at that… the question? Does it actually have an impact and does it really reduce, you know, E-Waste going to landfill?

Act 2: Who Is Right On E-Waste Vic Or NSW?

The reality is that, you know, E-Waste recycling is increasingly easy to do. And clearly, both jurisdictions Victoria and New South Wales, I don’t have the details in front of me or for other states and territories, but clearly, they all want to prevent E-Waste going to landfill.

E-waste, you know, for a number of reasons: firstly, it is valuable materials in it um… so precious metals and different things that can be readily recycled for profit, so that’s the first thing. The second thing is clearly, there is a… there’s an environmental risk and impact from E-Waste, you know, Dr landfill where it decays and emits or can emit toxic materials and certain things like cadmium and different minerals and materials that are inside the E-Waste as it rots away.

So clearly, both jurisdictions want to prevent this from going into landfill and prevent those negatives and obviously maximize the positives. The other thing to point out is that pretty much the recycling opportunities available, the options for recycling e-waste, you know, they’re pretty similar in both States and you have the more major chains.

Act 3: Who Is Right On E-Waste Vic Or NSW?

You pick it up, you know, you can drop them off at Officeworks. You can drop off batteries in Aldi. Um… you can drop them off at nearly all Council collections facilities. Both States will operate that and then there’s a lot of, you know, manufacturers, where they have recycling plant in place products Georgia plants etc. for TV sets and things like that so they’re nearly all, crossed it but State boundaries in Australia and so the options for recycling are very similar.

There is a difference in the outcomes between an outright barn and even if it’s, in theory, not enforced and more of uh… probably more of a guidance system in your tow wheels and I suppose it’s very difficult to measure if you don’t know what’s going in the bins etc. It’s very difficult to measure that. I haven’t seen details suggesting that Victoria’s recycling more or less. You know in theory, you’d expect it to be slightly more but I haven’t seen that that they are recycling more than New South Wales.

On an e-waste perspective, you know I suppose, the question to me is should we ban… should it be illegal? Um… it’s a tricky one because when you put in laws in theory, you are pressurised or you have to sort of enforce them and, you know, what how would you enforce this sort of stuff except going around and basically take out people’s bins and criticizing them for having a small piece of electrical stuff in the bin.

Act 4: Who Is Right On E-Waste Vic Or NSW?

I can certainly see the point of this on a macro scale, on a larger scale or even for larger producers or more industrial companies. It clearly should not be dumping significant amounts of heat waste in bins. Clearly, that issue would be easier to police and would make sense, you know. And I think probably the law in some instances does make sense in that regard.

Is it a bad thing to bring in legislation to prevent this sort of stuff, you know? Personally, in this instance, I don’t really think it’s not hurting people by saying you can’t put E-Waste in the bin. Clearly, we shouldn’t be doing that so there should be um… it should be a, you know, I suppose it should be our duty to some extent to recycle it to drop it off where it can be dropped off or take advantage of the Council of free services that are available you know for residential.

In nearly all instances, your waste… you can’t… it’s generally a free service and for a larger amount, you know, in many instances, you can receive a rebate for dropping off larger amounts, you know, volumes or weights of a width. Um… you know, it’s worth bearing in mind that there are valuable materials in these products. I think the Japanese Olympics, which certainly won’t go down as one of the funniest Olympics, but uh due to the restrictions etc. added and no crowds. But nearly all the medals I think at that Olympics were made from e-Waste, you know, the gold the silver and bronze um extracted as far as I remember just from mobile telephones.

Act 4: Who Is Right On E-Waste Vic Or NSW?

So there is significant um there’s value in these materials clearly not in a one or two items but clearly, there is if it’s an industrialized system where you can extract these materials there can be benefits so it is something we want to be pushing I think if we’re serious about Recycling and I’ll be honest or when I say recycling I suppose you could even argue just preventing valuable materials and toxic materials going into landfill.

So I think Australia is getting much more serious and we’re seeing that with the bans and restrictions on um single-use Plastics which you know in many instances is a good thing so I think we’re you know if we’re being serious we certainly should not be putting e-wasted landfill.

And I’ll leave it up to listeners and different more to the politicians whether you need to outright ban it and have legal restrictions on it or whether you know where that even benefits the outcomes again that’s more political issue but you know the outcomes are what’s important and I think both states are moving in a very a good direction I look forward to hearing what you think or your viewpoints on this on this topic and in the meantime you know check out our website check out our blogs we constantly publish new information and remember, Recycle: Don’t be a Waster!