Most Australians personally want to do the right thing by the environment but the growing incidence of recycling schemes appearing not to be all that they claim risks undermining public trust.
Former employees of the recycling company that runs the national network of Ecobatt battery collection bins at retailers such as Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and Bunnings have told the Herald the company is dumping, stockpiling or burning millions of batteries.
Our investigation by Ben Cubby and Bianca Hall found evidence that Australia’s biggest battery recycler, the Ecocycle group, has persistently evaded audits that would shed light on its battery processing claims.
Data from AirTag location devices secretly placed inside batteries collected by Ecocycle showed waste being diverted from the company’s main processing centre in Melbourne to a suburban scrapyard with a troubled environmental history, where they vanished.
The government-backed Battery Stewardship Council, which administers the national B-Cycle scheme, conceded it has been unable to verify what has actually happened to all 10,000 tonnes of used batteries Ecocycle collected and has now launched its own investigation into the company.
For its part, Ecocycle said regulators had found no recent problems at company worksites and blamed industry rivals for spreading misinformation about its recycling practices.
However, the company has been fined for breaches at one of its Victorian facilities and dangerously sloppy work practices were found in 2020 at the company’s e-waste facility at St Marys in western Sydney, where batteries from NSW are gathered before being trucked to Melbourne.
Australians have been down a recycling dead end before.
In late 2022, Australians discovered much of the soft plastic dropped off at supermarkets for recycling – shopping bags, wrappers, food packaging and the like – was not being recycled at all. Instead, at least 12,000 tonnes had been shoved into warehouses across three states and forgotten about after REDcycle, the Melbourne company responsible for gathering the waste, could no longer process the stockpiles. Four years after REDcycle collapsed, it was announced on Thursday that consumers will be able to recycle their soft plastics at major supermarkets with a new national scheme back in place.
The soft plastics debacle is a red flag warning on how the wider Australian recycling industry needs better oversight.
Australia’s growing dependence on electronic devices has created a glut of used batteries that looms as a pressing and lethal environmental problem.
In NSW and Victoria, exploding lithium batteries spark fires almost every day, while single-use alkaline and nickel-metal hydride batteries bring their own sets of toxins that can poison people and the environment. The average Australian uses about 13 batteries a year, with most ending up in landfill.
Battery recycling has shifted from a niche environmental concern to a critical pillar of economic security and fire safety and schemes attract funding from battery manufacturers and the public purse: Victoria and Western Australian governments gave nearly $4 million to Ecocycle.
Australians invest much effort in protecting the environment. Regulators must ensure recyclers honour promises and taxpayers get value for money.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
