Dr Joeri Jacobs (Netherlands): The WMAA has already sent out flyers regarding a presentation given by Dr Jacobs about a low cost fugitive methane emission measurement technique he has developed in Europe. He will be speaking in Sydney 25 March and Brisbane 31 March. This seminar is very topical as methane emissions from landfill are a hot topic in the waste management debate in regards to climate change.

December 2008: Dr Morton Barlaz from the USA will be doing a full country-wide speaking tour on the topic of Carbon Storage in Landfill. This is also a very hot topic in the landfill industry. The Dept of Climate Change is interested in how carbon storage might change the traditional view that landfills are a problem for greenhouse emissions and so is the industry. It is now widely accepted that wood is essentially inert in landfills but Dr Barlaz and the Dept of Primary Industry in NSW are investigating the fate of other wood products as well. The Landfill Division has contributed to the research funding. He will have data from these studies to present during his tour.

The Division has gained initial funding from the WMAA to put together a National study program for 2009 on methane emissions from landfill. This study will be based around an Australia wide monitoring program to try and quantify the actual methane emissions from a range of landfill types and sizes. It will be a large and expensive program and the Division is proposing that in 2008, the scope of the study, cost, resources and funding commitments from the landfill industry will be put in place. The study will be built on the work already done by the NSW Landfill Working Group. When emissions trading comes in 2010, the landfill industry will benefit enormously from having independent and verifiable data on the actual emissions as eventually we will be put in the position of having to buy credits for our methane emissions.

The template developed for the landfill survey is also being considered for transfer stations.

ISWA is offering online ISWA memberships to all members of the WMAA. The memberships are available at AU$110 including GST and provide online participation in various working groups as well as other benefits.

ISWA's Online membership scheme will give a view of waste management worldwide to all. In addition, by working with and supporting the international association, the ISWA Regional Development Network will be in a position to have much more influence and input into its direction and activities.

ISWA Online Members will receive the ISWA Newsletter (10 per year), EU News (10), International Waste News (6), and ISWA Globe (4). You will also receive Waste Management World (6) in hard copy. Online members will have the opportunity to become corresponding members of any, or all, of the specialist working groups.

Online members will also be able to access the National Member Waste Profile, the Members only area on the website, Abstracts from articles in Waste Management & Research, and the Member list in Waste Management World. They will also receive free online publications and for publications in print or on CD rom will receive a special discount of 25%.

To register online, click here

The STC has taken steps to launch the ISWA Task Force on Climate Change as a means to capture the many various activities where ISWA has involvement.

Details will be available on the ISWA website.

Many televisions at the end of their useful lives are dumped in landfill but SITA Environmental Solutions and cruising company, Princess Cruises, have come with a better way.

Recently, Princess Cruises replaced 660 cathode ray TVs with the LCD flat screen variety on the premium superliner Sun Princess. All TVs will be recycled by SITA Environmental Solutions.

Ann Sherry, Chief Executive Officer of Carnival Australia which operates Princess Cruises in this market, said recycling was the centrepiece of its new contract with SITA.

The TVs will be manually dismantled by SITA in partnership with PGM Refiners, recovering plastic, copper and some steel. The glass screens are also crushed and sent to a smelter where lead is recovered.

The biggest challenge with improving recycling rates in Australia is the relative costs compared to landfill. Unless there is an Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme in place, recycling can cost more than dumping in landfill.

An EPR scheme on TVs would see manufacturers and importers covering the costs of recycling at the end of the useful life of the TV. Often this is passed on to buyers of new TVs as a small additional payment.

Australia is yet to develop EPR schemes for TVs, computers and white goods. Until it does many more recyclable products will go to landfill.

A trio of Australia’s leading environmentalists has lost patience with smokers, as more and more cigarette butts are entering our environment.

Founder of Planet Ark, Mr Jon Dee, Chair of the Butt Littering Trust, Mr Ian Coles and Chair of Keep Australia Beautiful, Mr Don Chambers are calling for:

• relevant authorities around Australia to create a minimum fine for butt littering, in excess of $400
• all smokers to take responsibility for their littering
• local councils to more actively enforce litter laws (where they have them)

The group has demanded more accountability from smokers and called for the heavy fines following years of litter prevention campaigns.

Research indicates that generally smokers do not recognise butts as litter. Butts have again topped the Clean Up Australia Day list of most littered items, as it does every year.

The trio acknowledged the good work of some organisations, citing the recent Victorian State Government ‘Don’t be a tosser’ campaign, but outside of their own organisations little is being done to promote butt littering prevention.

An estimated 7.2 billion butts enter the Australian environment every year, with a notable rise since smoking bans were introduced.

The Butt Littering Trust runs an annual Butt Free City campaign, which runs between 17–21 March.

Educators will be taking to the streets in ten cities, to talk to smokers and encourage them to bin their butts, and to advise them of the environmental impact of flinging butts to the pavement.

Keep Australia Beautiful’s National Litter Index shows the depth of the problem. Over two years (2005-2006, 2006-2007) butt litter has increased by 3% and cigarette packaging litter by 13%.

Close it down or appoint new managers - they are the only options that Boambee residents believe will rid them of the sickening smells coming from the new biomass plant at Coffs Harbour on the mid-coast of New South Wales.

The plant has been on the nose, and according to neighbours of the England's Road waste facility the smells coming from it are worse than ever.

But the manager of the biomass plant, Lee Beckett, says he is working to address the smelly situation.

He has promised new measures being introduced will significantly reduce odour emissions.

"The material that was odorous, we've now removed that totally from outside and we're stabilising that material and we're aerating the stormwater storage dam we've got on site," he said.

"We've engaged consultants to give us advice to just ensure we are doing absolutely everything we can to eliminate any sources of odour."

Source: ABC Online

A waste disposal site processing Bali's methane-gas-ridden landfills has been hailed as a solution for the rest of Indonesia.

Yayasan Gus started the Temesi Waste project in Gianyar, Bali, in 2004 to address the town's serious waste disposal problems.

The project, being managed by the Rotary Club of Bali, Ubud, has become a model of solid waste management that can be replicated throughout the country.

The 2,400-square-meter site originally processed four tons of waste a day but is now ready to expand to 50 tons per day, or about 17,500 tons per year. About 85 percent of the waste consists of organic matter that can be composted, and 5 percent of non-organic waste can be recovered and sold to recyclers.

Only about 10 percent of the remaining waste is unusable, and is dumped safely into the neighbouring landfill after hazardous material has been removed.

Temesi uses the aerobic composting method, using blowers to air the compost. The oxygen stops methane gas being produced from the waste, as occurs in anaerobic, unaired composting sites.
The project is registered with the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanisms, which provides compensation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that can then be sold in the growing carbon trading market.

Rotarian Swiss chemical engineer and Temesi project leader David Kuper said the plant only produced carbon dioxide, not methane, which is 21 times stronger.

For the full story, please visit The Jakarta Post

The world is moving towards high risks of dangerous climate change more rapidly than has generally been understood, according to the interim report of the Garnaut Climate Change Review.

The Review has been commissioned by Australia's Federal, State and Territory Governments to examine the impacts and opportunities of climate change. It will put forward a national framework for action, with recommendations for medium to long-term policy options to minimise the environmental and economic impacts of climate change.

The report finds that the largest source of increased urgency is the unexpectedly high growth of the world economy in the early twenty-first century, combined with unexpectedly high-energy intensity of that growth and continuing reliance on high-emissions fossil fuels as sources of energy.

These developments are associated with strong economic growth in the developing world, first of all in China. The stronger growth has strong momentum and is likely to continue.

The report concludes that Australia’s interest lies in the world adopting a strong and effective position on climate change mitigation. This interest is driven by two realities of Australia’s position relative to other developed countries: our exceptional sensitivity to climate change: and our exceptional opportunity to do well in a world of effective global mitigation. Australia playing its full part in international efforts on climate change can have a positive effect on global outcomes. The direct effects of Australia’s emissions reduction efforts are of secondary importance.

It recommends that Australia should make firm commitments in 2008, to 2020 and 2050 emissions targets that embody similar adjustment cost to that accepted by other developed countries. A lead has been provided by the European Union, and there are reasonable prospects that the United States will become part of the main international framework after the November 2008 elections.

Some version of the current State and Federal targets of 60 per cent reduction by 2050, with appropriate interim targets, would meet these requirements.

The Interim Report sets out some initial considerations for the design of Australia’s ETS, due to come into effect in 2010. It says that Australia must now put in place effective policies to achieve major reductions in emissions. The emissions trading scheme (ETS) is the centre-piece of a domestic mitigation strategy.

Further detail on the Review’s proposals for ETS design will be released in a discussion paper in mid March 2008.

Submissions are invited on the Interim Report and any issues
related to the Review by 11 April 2008.

The Interim Report is available at www.garnautreview.org.au

Applying organic fertilizers, such as those resulting from composting, to agricultural land could increase the amount of carbon stored in these soils and contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research. Carbon sequestration in soil has been recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the European Commission as one of the possible measures through which greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated.

ScienceDaily reports that one estimate of the potential value of this approach -- which assumed that 20% of the surface of agricultural land in the EU could be used as a sink for carbon -- suggested it could constitute about 8.6% of the total EU emission-reduction objective.

"An increase of just 0.15% in organic carbon in arable soils in a country like Italy would effectively imply the sequestration of the same amount of carbon within soil that is currently released into the atmosphere in a period of one year through the use of fossil fuels," write Enzo Favoino and Dominic Hogg, authors of the paper.

"Furthermore, increasing organic matter in soils may cause other greenhouse gas-saving effects, such as improved workability of soils, better water retention, less production and use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, and reduced release of nitrous oxide."

However, capitalising on this potential climate-change mitigation measure is not a simple task. The issue is complicated by the fact that industrial farming techniques mean agriculture is actually depleting carbon from soil, thus reducing its capacity to act as a carbon sink.

According to Hogg and Favoino, this loss of carbon sink capacity is not permanent. Composting can contribute in a positive way to the twin objectives of restoring soil quality and sequestering carbon in soils. Applications of organic matter (in the form of organic fertilizers) can lead either to a build-up of soil organic carbon over time, or a reduction in the rate at which organic matter is depleted from soils. In either case, the overall quantity of organic matter in soils will be higher than using no organic fertilizer.

For the full story, please visit ScienceDaily

Brisbane City Council Waste Industry Forum Friday 4 April, 2008

RSVP by Friday 28 March, 2008:
John Hogg
Brisbane City Council
E: John.Hogg@brisbane.qld.gov.au