Bundy and Guinness get into the spirit of CDL
Calls for national Container Deposit Legislation (CDL) received a major boost this week, with Diageo Australia – the nation’s top spirits and ready-to-drink producer – announcing its support for the concept. It is a major break from the wider beverage industry’s vehement opposition to CDL.
Diageo is the international drinks giant behind well-known brands including Bundaberg Rum, UDL, Johnnie Walker and Guinness. With over 22,000 employees worldwide, it is well positioned to consider Australia’s recycling performance in comparison to other nations – and it says that to lift local recycling rates “necessitates new approaches such as container deposits”.
Corporate relations director Ron Ainsbury said, “An effectively designed system of container deposits, one which fits with current kerbside schemes and does not become a tax for government, should provide both the right incentive for the community to play their role in increasing recycling rates as well as the all important public place infrastructure to collect materials.”
“While Diageo’s products are a small portion of the overall volume of packaging (around 4 per cent of glass and 8 per cent of aluminium) we are concerned to ensure that as much as possible of this material is recovered for recycling,” he said, adding over 99 per cent of the company’s packaging is recyclable.
Diageo recently trialled a deposit refund approach at two sponsored events, including music festival HomeBake, where it achieved a recycling rate of 95 per cent based on a $1 deposit system.
“This experience proved to Diageo that a deposit system was effective for recovering bottles and cans, kept the sites extremely clean of rubbish, and was also well received by the public,” Ainsbury said.
CDL is on the agenda for the April 17 meeting of the Environment Protection and Heritage Council, the first since Labor ascended to federal power.
(Extracted from www.EnvironmentalManagementNews.net)\ Mining is not just for Gold!
Sewer mining will soon begin in the Kogarah area in NSW following an agreement signed by Sydney Water and Kogarah Council to help conserve water in the region. Sewer mining involves tapping into a sewer main and extracting wastewater, which is then treated and re-used for irrigation.
Kogarah Council plans to use the 125 ML of recycled wastewater generated from the process each year to irrigate the Beverly Park Golf Course and all parks in Kogarah.
Sydney Water managing director Kerry Schott said the plant would treat the water to a level suitable for irrigation in accordance with the Australian Guidelines for Water Recycling, introduced in November 2006.
"Schemes such as this contribute to considerable savings for Sydney's water supply," she said.
Kogarah Council has built a sewer mining plant and installed pumps and pipes to support the project.
(Courtesy of www.constructionindustrynews.net) Where did that empty soft drink bottle go?
There is often a debate about what happens to all those plastics our communities use. I&I recently came across one company which is actively recycling plastics from soft drink bottles.
Geofabrics Australasia manufactures geotextiles for engineering applications including road, rail, mines, landfills and golf course construction. Their ‘bidim’ and ‘megaflo’ branded PET and HDPE textiles are manufactured from Australian and imported soft drink bottles.
One application of bidim
For the technically minded ‘bidim’ is a continuous filament nonwoven needle punched polyester geotextile designed to provide effective and economic solutions to a multitude of engineering applications. These include drainage for road works, separation of materials in fill applications and filtration of water in drainage systems to prevent fines migration.
How Megaflo is put together
An application of Megaflo
‘Megaflo’ is a stiff, high flow velocity panel drain. Typical applications are for road edge drainage, landfills, sports field drainage and to reduce water pressure on structures.
For more information visit www.geofabrics.com.au
Is Green really Green??
Businesses using environmental claims to sell their products now have access to an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) guide to improve the accuracy of information provided to consumers. Among the advice in the guide is for companies to consider the whole life cycle of a product or service when making claims about its environmental impact.
"The ACCC has produced Green marketing and the Trade Practices Act in response to the increasing use of green claims in advertising by businesses seeking to differentiate themselves and their products from their competition by means of environmental claims," Graeme Samuel head of the ACCC said.
It contains advice about principles to consider when making 'green' claims. One of these principles is to factor the product life cycle into any green claims, which means the manufacturing, recycling, destruction and disposal process must be considered.
The ACCC uses the example of a car that is manufactured to be fuel efficient and advertised as 'green' or 'eco-friendly' to illustrate this point. It said the claims do not take into account the harm to the environment of the production process or the disposal of the car at the end of its life cycle, which may have a large environmental impact. Advertising the car as being 'fuel efficient' rather than 'green' could help avoid misleading consumers, the ACCC said.
Other principles to consider include:
• Claims should be specific, not unqualified and/or general statements;
• Claims should be accurate and be able to be substantiated; and
• Claims should be in plain language.
(Extracted from www.EnvironmentalManagementNews.net ) Change Management – why so hard?
“Why do (people) not want to change when the need for change is so clear to you? It is precisely because the need for change is not clear to them. It is often said that people don’t resist change so much as they resist being changed.
So your job is clear: In a nutshell, you have to explain why the affected people should want to change. You have to convey the same understanding and enthusiasm that you and your team have. You have to cultivate readiness, not resistance.”
—Excerpt from Brien Palmer’s Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change
A model for human overcoming resistance to change…
(Courtesy of www.asq.org ) Your Ideas, Innovations or Events?
If you want publicity for an idea, innovation or technically related event, contact the I&I editor, Colin Seaborn on 4254 0200 or 0419 841829 or click here-> We welcome stories and photos.
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