Hey guys, this is Jess Suringa you are listening to and this is my podcast ​A Broken System

Australia has a major problem at the moment, and has been happening for the last 2 years. Very few
people are actually aware of this problem but yet it proceeds to affect so much. We are continually
misguided and lied to. So I’m here to explain this truly broken system Australia has.

Australia has relied on other countries taking our waste for too long, rather than dealing with it
ourselves we ship it anywhere else. Until lately we have had no responsibilities in handling our waste
in mass numbers when several countries cut off waste importation.

For the past couple decades China had been taking 125 000 tonnes of our plastic waste every year,
let alone the amount of waste they have taken that was non plastic. After China suddenly shut the
doors on importations of 24 types of recyclable resources places around the world had to find
somewhere else to put their waste, they found new buyers in South East Asia, particularly Malaysia.
71 000 tonnes of waste was dumped in malaysia in just 12 months making Malaysia a dumping
ground for countries everywhere, including Australia. Hundreds of illegal factories were set up where
rubbish we thought was being recycled is simply dumped, buried or even just burned. Our recycling
and waste often ends up in other countries dumped and discarded, piled up in warehouses, or in
landfill, very little of it is actually recycled or reused, specifically plastic, being the biggest problem.
Some places don’t even bother with plastic, and instead it gets taken straight to landfill with no
attempt to restore it, due to the fact that there are huge huge amounts of it.

Plastic isn’t being recycled because it is too hard but then there are resources like glass which are
potentially the easiest thing to recycle are not being recycled, glass just has to be broken back down
into sand and then can be used for things like foundations of roads, pavers, housing like what sand is
generally used for but instead of using restored sand, companies use virgin sand, damaging the
environment and leaving these perfectly usable resources in warehouses, being wasted and taking
up space.

Australia continues to find other countries to send their rubbish to, instead of creating a solution here
in our own country. Many councils and companies throughout Australia have huge stacks of plastic
sitting around waiting until we find a solution or to just be put into the ground, very few companies are
actually recycling plastic. David Hodge, owner of plastic forests, one of these companies that actually
recycles plastic explains why this is. ​16:40 - 16:53.

So what is being done? Not a lot has been done, small companies like plastic forests are doing things
but its not enough, the scale of production is simply not large enough and governments are refusing
to help as much as they could be. So these small companies have to go about with very little funding,
they are turning hazardous plastic waste into reusable plastic goods, some places are even turning
plastic into a fuel. If small things like this turned into big things, we could really be going somewhere.
Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it will happen any time soon.

Many people are unaware of this recycling problem in Australia, can imagine they wouldn’t be
impressed that we are being lied to about what recycling actually is to Australia.

So quite clearly people are unimpressed in being lied to, as emily mentioned people continue to buy
plastic because they think it is going to be reused and recycled. We should be educated about where
our waste is going so we can make better decisions on what our waste is.

So that’s it guys, keep recycling, spread awareness, put your cardboard in the compost instead of the
bin, use less plastic.

Now Australia, you better hurry with it because the countries you are sending your rubbish to are sick
of it, in fact Malaysia is about to send it all back, get it together and recycle. Byeeeee