How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter? The rising challenge of methane emissions from waste – Australia
Posted on July 13, 2025 by DrRossH in Landfills and DisposalA major source of methane comes from waste – especially decomposing organic matter in landfills – and something needs to be done about it.
Source: The rising challenge of methane emissions from waste – Inside Waste
Australia’s Emerging Policies
Unlike the European Union, Australia has only one federal legislative mechanism specifically targeting methane emissions from waste, the Safeguard Mechanism:
- Which requires a 4.9 per cent reduction in annual emissions by covered companies.
- However, it only covers the very big landfills emitting more than 100kt CO₂-e. Most of these already have methane capture systems in place and have a limited capacity to do more.
- Therefore, 90 per cent plus of Australia’s landfills are not covered and there is no federal legislation forcing them to install gas capture.
The National Waste Policy Action Plan aims for a 50 per cent reduction in organics to landfill, but there are no mandates or regulatory requirements to achieve this target.
In 2021/22, the Australian solid waste management sector generated 10.5 Mt CO₂-e, with landfills responsible for 97 per cent of those emissions. Methane capture rates have stalled at around 45%, falling behind countries like the UK and the US, which achieve over 60 per cent.
Australia currently sends about 7.6 million tonnes of food waste to landfill annually. Diverting this waste from landfill, presents an incredible opportunity to generate high quality compost and renewable green energy via AD while reducing GHG emissions and preserving landfill space.
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