MidCoast Council is encouraging local residents to keep on ‘recycling right’ following changes to Australia’s recycling industry are being driven by Chinese policy.

Recycling has become a positive part of life here in the MidCoast, with almost three quarters of our local community regularly using their yellow bins, and recycling bins installed in CBD areas.

And until recently, much of our recycled material, particularly paper, cardboard and mixed plastics, was sorted and baled in local facilities, before being on-sold to processors in China.

But a recent policy shift by the Chinese Government has placed restrictions on the quality of the materials being imported, placing pressure on local councils across Australia.

Known as the National Sword, China’s revised policy limits contamination rates of recycled products to less than 0.5 per cent in a bid to ensure the health and safety of their own workforce and the viability of their reprocessing businesses.

What this means for recycling in the MidCoast “is a potential opportunity to develop a local reprocessing capacity, which will take some time to develop, but would ultimately lead to the creation of local industries and local jobs”, explained John Cavanagh, MidCoast Council’s Manager, Waste Health and Regulatory Services.

“This is a nation-wide issue and we are already working with all levels of government to advocate policy and structural changes, and to incentivise local solutions”.

‘Recycle right’ is the call-out to local residents and businesses, to ensure contents collected in our yellow bins can continue to be recycled.

“Our community has shown they understand the importance of recycling, and while the National Sword policy has placed some stress on our local recycling industry, it’s crucial we continue our terrific efforts while a solution is developed,” John said.

Residents are reminded to ‘recycle right’ by remaining vigilant about what is placed into the yellow bin. Items should be restricted to aluminium and steel cans, glass bottles and jars (lids removed), paper and cardboard, and plastic, non-scrunchable, containers.

“Keep your items loose - people often bundle items for recycling in plastic bags, but this means they can’t be sorted and processed,” John said.

And to minimise contamination rates in our recycling, residents should also ensure that nothing smaller than a business card is placed in the yellow bin, and remove residue by rinsing items in used dishwater prior to placing out for recycling.

“As a broader initiative we can all make a difference by thinking about what we’re using in the first place… consuming less, avoiding over-packaged and disposable products, buying recycled products, and looking for opportunities to re-use”, he said.

While it is likely some of the recycled materials collected in our yellow kerbside bins will be stockpiled in the short term, MidCoast Council says it is committed to reducing the amount of waste going to landfill and will continue to promote the ‘refuse, reduce, re-use and recycle right’ message to local residents.

For more information about what items are suitable for recycling, visit www.midcoastwaste.com.au/what-goes-where