Australia a great place to live but we have more to do to make our country a responsible global citizen

My partner and I were appalled to learn that Australia has been exporting waste paper products impregnated with various bits of plastic to Indonesia.  The aim is to have Indonesia manage some of our waste.  We also used to send a lot of our waste to China to be dealt with but the Chinese have stopped receiving this waste.

In Indonesia some of the paper impregnated waste was on sold to tofu factories to feed their furnaces.  It all looked ghastly with the workers breathing in toxic fumes from the waste caused by the burning plastic. Indonesia is now returning such waste to Australia and good on them for so doing.

Why can't Australia develop processes to handle our waste other than the invidious landfill method that has been used throughout my long lifetime?  Waste management is one of the challenges faced by Australia and I know of various university research projects that are breaking new ground in this area.

It is time to act.  Imagine being able to export processes that enable effective waste management rather than our actual waste.


May the Force be with us!


GD

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