Rick Ralph highlights the economic potential in the recycling sector

Published Jun 20, 2025, 4:55 AM

Retirement Living Council Executive Director Rick Ralph is calling for a shift in the waste and recycling narrative away from negative targets and toward its economic value for Australia.

 

Retirement living Council Executive Director Rick Ralph has made no secret of the ambition that the narrative around waste and recycling should be changed and the way it can push the economic value proposition in Australia. Instead of focusing on negative targets, he's highlighting the industry's economic upside.

Rick Ralph told Sofie Formica on 4BC Afternoons, "Since day dot about 27 cents in the dollar has only ever come back to the industry." 

Well.

Rick Ralph is the Chief executive Officer of the Australian Resources Recovery Council, and he's made no secret of the ambition that we should be having to change the narrative when it comes to waste in this country and recycling and the way that it can really push the economic value proposition in Australia. Instead of focusing on negative targets, he's highlighting the industry's economic upside. He wants us all to be considering how resource recovery centers can create job boost manufacturing, strengthen local supply chains, make us also think a little bit more laterally and clever. He's a big advocate for strong domestic markets for recovered materials, especially with all the global trade challenges that we know are happening in the world at the moment. And Rick is joining us now on afternoons.

Thanks for your time, Rick, my closest, Thanks for having me.

Can we start a little locally please, I'd like to start with the Brisbane City Council budget announcement this week and the announcement of rolling out universal green bin services. Obviously, it's all about diverting green waste from landfill and much of the announcement I think has been hijacked by the cost to residents, especially for those who don't want or need a green bin and would still find themselves bearing a fifty dollars cost or thereabouts.

I just will point out.

The individual quarterly green bin charge is going to be scrapped instead, there's this universal fee for bin collection per household. And what I'd love is for you to explain to me and the listeners in simple terms the way the state government waste levee works at the moment and why this proposal actually does make economic and environmental sense for ratepayers in Brisbane.

The waste levee was introduced by Minister Traden Premier Palichet in two thousand, I think in eighteen. Since that period of time, the idea was that waste levees you put the you put a gate fee on which of the industry has to charge to run the operations. And the government says, well, we're going to have a tax, called it a tax what it is, and for every time that you take in, we're going to charge the money and by the fault, that money should then go back into the industry and go back in the government. The reality is since they dot about twenty seven cents in the dollar has only ever come back to the industry and we're raising now it'll be the fifth lart. It's in the top five rule taxes out of payroll tax and duties and other bits and pieces, so it's a significant amount of money. Now. What's happened over the time though, is local government for the six years when they brought the levy in very simply put is it was going to go for always going to landfill and stopping the state waste. Well it never stopped into waste state waste because it's a tradeing commodity. It's the reality. So and South Northern New South Wales councils for years closed their facilities and moved the material in the Southeast Queensland because the industry is always encouraged to use it to rehabilitate old voids. Move long six years. The government now said look this is unsustainable. We're now increasing in our volumes of waste per capita and the last six years local government have had an advanced payment, so they've actually based on their population. Each local government the levy area got a figure amount of money and if they reduced their waste, then they would only pay back what they actually sent to landfill. The reality is that hasn't occurred. Then now has the worst recycling performance nationally. We now nationally Australians are generating two point eight eight tons per capita, which in this year will go to about eighty one million tons. So the state government said enough is enough, We now to get serious about changing the dynamics. And as a result of that they removed the levy advanced payment for the ratepayer, even though industry has been subsidizing that for years and the same person as the ratepayer as the industry person. So we've always advocated that the system is flawed from day dot and as a result of that, you now have this focus, Oh, look we should be doing something. That's what Council is doing. Municivil osalivation is thirty percent of the waste stream. Of that fifty percent of it is in the organics. REDUCEI your organics, you reduce your levy liability the world.

And look, that might have been a bit tricky for some people to move along with, but I think what we tried to capture in that conversation as simply as possible is that this is a holistic problem that has many pieces of the puzzle, and each one impacts the other one. So when we say green bin fifty bucks here, it is put your green waste in it.

The other thing that is doing.

And I've spoken about this in the past with regards to plastic, because I know that it's one of the great passions of Andrew Forrest to try to commoditize plastic and see it something of value so that we don't just dig a hole and bury it.

This green waste.

Can actually be turned into a product that has a value, correct.

And I think this is part of the problem. The narrative around waste has always been we generate waste, We've got materials in there, let's pull it out. Our counsel and myself, I've been in the industry for forty five years and I've said this. I said this actually ironically I read a media article I wrote back in twenty fourteen, but I said, we need to flip the whole conversation and start to think about supply chains and manufacturing simple things like organics is part of the equation. And importantly, Brisbane City Council have had had the foresight to say, for the contractors, we're actually going to consider taking this material back from you at a commercial rate, So that underpins the commercial viability of the industry to have that investment that goes forward.

So what you mean by that is that council will so the bin gets collected, it goes to a facility where it's obviously you know, it's cleaned, there's a level of quality control, it's turned into a mulch that can be used, and then council would buy it back to put it in gardens and parks and wherever they need it instead of buying it from somewhere else.

Correct, And so basically they're actually and they'll have skin in the game then because then that'll be in their incentive to make sure that the contamination and that is and all that sort of stuff is not in the bin. So if we take a more holistic view, Sophie, and look at resources in a more global fear, one of the challenges or about the tariffs and we here about China and everything in a very simple scenario would be for government both but we're advocating for federal government, state government and local government. Start thinking of the materials that you're actually throwing away as a value proposition to manufacturing, supply and energy simple equation. Steel scratch steel, your old steel cans and all those bits and pieces they actually in Australia can be remanufactured into reinforcing bar by manufacturers. Now in Australia, if we started to say we're not going to import reinforcing bar by e of the centenary bridge that's going and there's probably thousands of tons of rio bar going in there. If we start thinking about what we can actually do in terms of infrastructure that government spends their dollars on and says we want the primary contractor the first and foremost procure material that has US, Queensland or Australian recycling content. That changes the dynamic because all of a sudden, then we're not looking that waste is a waste problem. We're saying, hng on, we've got something here. We can value add extraplate that across the range of material. We can take tires and we put that into tire adhesives locally or ashpelt. We can take construction and demolition materials and use that. We can take the dry fluffy material at our resource recovery facilities over at hem A brand new state of the artline now and we can actually produce engineered fuels that can go into cement kills and alternative energy that we are currently exporting to mills overseas and they're displacing Australian coal. So what we're saying, Saphie is flip the conversation, stop talking about waste and start talking about missources.

Yeah, look as far as this one at hand now, I think obviously listeners would wonder whether or not southeas Queensland's current processing facilities can cope with what is going to be the additional volume. You know, obviously we're talking about tons of green fill that potentially can.

Be there, and you mentioned it already and all say it again.

Really going to be important that we have an education piece that runs alongside this so that we do see people buying into doing the right thing and so that there isn't contamination of what goes into the green bin because because because I think we do a really poor job at the moment with our yellow top bin. I think that you know, we've kind of it's fallen by the wayside, because as you've already articulated, Ralph, we aren't doing a good job when it comes to and you know, there are two parts to this. There's the application of commercial resource recovery, and you talk about it when you talk about buildings that come down and how much of that can actually find itself with a new life. And I think that our conversation today with my listeners is really more about the residential piece and how each and every one of us should have some should have some want to be a part of this positively because we haven't. We do it mindlessly and that's why people don't use the yellow top bin well, and we potentially will find ourselves in a situation where people miss use the green top bin as well.

You are one hundred percent correct safety and one of the challenges we've had there's been so much negativity around recycling waste management that the general community is quite underwhelmed by it or has a lack of confidence. I can give your listeners the absolute guarantee that if you put the material into the recycling bin, it is processed in state of the art facilities and it is reused and repurposed. It does not go to landfill. But it is critical that they actually start to think about what they put in the bin and how they put it. And this is why the education piece around the green waste. I think it's a great conversation because all of a sudden people are now saying, all hay, and what's all this about. That's the start of this journey. And what we need to do is actually give confidence. The industry has got the confidence we can do it. We've got the assets. Yes, there might have to be some expansion, but this gives the industry the capability now to go forward and invest ifs which is going to follow once we get organic start, then we change the psyche. So I really would encourage people. You know, everyone looks at and say, oh, look at the costs are going up, et cetera. It's a three bin system. The average recycling or garbage truck is half a million dollars. It has to last least ten years and then rebuild it or and you repurpose it. You have to have drivers, you have to actually have processing facilities and everything. Yes, there is a cost, but that cost comes a community and environmental betfort and more importantly, people forget this sofety waste management is a health issue to the environment. It's a health waste management it keeps our communities healthy. So if we don't do it, we're going to go down a very slippery slope and actually start to generate. We have a major, major train wreck coming across the use from seaboard within five to seven years, where we are going to run out of landfill capacity. That is an absolute reality. Nobody wants landfills. I understand that these are not just landfills, these are purposely built. We need have also a really strong conversation about alternative fuels going to the waste in the waste to energy and that then goes back into baseload power for the grid. Yeah, I think it's time now we have a mature conversation on the whole range front and we're championing the cause change it. I'll just say one thing very simply. If we keep doing the same thing and expect this and expect a different outcome, that's a matter of lunacy. It just doesn't work. And what we're saying now, let's flip the dial and build and look at it more focused.

I can remember having conversations pre COVID about when there was the first talk of their potentially being a waste energy plant and the pushback from the community and then it.

Sort of fell by the wayside.

But we know that they have been successful in many other parts of the world, and Western Australia looks like they've picked up that baton and are giving it a great shot.

Just in terms of our bins.

The next piece you would imagine too, and I know that it's happened in some other council areas, is that we also can ramp up our organic waste in terms of our food organic garden waste what they call the fogo. Is it likely that if we can do the green fill well, we could then potentially see a council as big as Brisbanes who did some trials and I'm not sure exactly what happened there, also see our organic materials go into those green bins.

The problem you have with fogo is it has to be done in an in parslon. It can be odorous and whatever. If we try and chain the Titanic trains of the super tanker, we've got to do this slowly and sensibly. If we get the model right to go the garden organics, yes, we should be looking at foe the food organics. We can process that in Australia. We can do that through bi other jesters and other smart technologies. It can be done. But the problem is contamination, right, and if we all of a sudden are going from one hundred and seventy thousand homes in Brisbane three hundred and forty thousand homes and we go from forty thousand ten to one hundred thousand ton, there's a recipe. Therefore, we don't get the cake mix right, you're going to end up with a very very ugly cake and that then we'll just undermine the entire system. I would encourage the community please think more positively at it. Use the material. They can then go back to their organics areas and their farming communities. This material has got an absolute home. But we all need to get on board with this. Sophie and I think if we focus on our organics, we can start to lift our game in terms of the yellow bin. And I certainly from the government will be advotating to the government they should be spending when they spend money in new infrastructure, they should be demanding the primary contractor' using recycled content that flips the dial totally. And that's where we've got to take it.

You're absolutely spot on, and I think at the end of the day, the mantra we need to be keeping front of mine is that we can't just keep digging holes because we have the space now and it might be the cheapest option, because you've already mentioned that at some point will reach capacity and nobody wants it in their backyard. Rick, Ralph, always a pleasure to talk to you and would love to continue this conversation with you on afternoons in the future as these changes happen and we take.

The listeners and myself along on the journey.

Thank you, not a problem, Thank you Sokey