Learned academy warns of need ‘to design for waste avoidance’

Leading scientists and engineers have warned that National Waste Policy Action Plan goals will be “difficult to achieve without focusing on avoidance”.

A new report from the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, Towards a Waste-Free Future, has found that while the plan prioritises avoidance in principle, its “measures are heavily weighted towards waste collection and recycling, rather than avoidance, reuse, repair of remanufacture”.

The
report’s authors also said the stakeholders they had consulted were
“overwhelmingly” of the view that the availability of new and suitable
technology in the waste and resource recovery sector was not the core barrier
to technology uptake.

“Nor is
workforce availability or skills, or societal readiness for change.

“The main
challenge appears to be that Australia does not have the right economic, policy
and regulatory frameworks to provide certainty and incentivise investment and
innovation in a thriving waste and resource recovery sector.”

The report
recommends a “paradigm shift to design for waste avoidance” – which it says the
Commonwealth could accelerate by:

• Targeting
  manufacturing grant programs and tax incentives toward innovative design for
  waste avoidance or minimisation (eg, product as a service, and reusable
  products), and sustainable use of recycled content;
• Creating
  standards and certification systems for reused and remanufactured goods to
  build consumer confidence and promote the design of products with reuse and
  refurbishment in mind;
• Creating
  a legislated consumer right to repair products, starting with electronics; and
• Ensuring
  all costs and regulations apply equally to imports and Australian products to
  disincentivise “free rider’ or dumping behaviour.

Other
recommendations include a systems approach to increase resource productivity
and recovery, and improved information quality, quantity, timeliness, and
transparency to inform decision-making by policymakers, businesses, and
consumers.