80% Australian Businesses Don’t Recycle

A new study, conducted by Business Waste, Australia’s leading waste and recycling experts, found that almost 80% of Australian businesses either don’t recycle or don’t care.

According to RenewEconomy.com.au, the survey interviewed over 1,200 businesses and found that many send most of their rubbish to landfill, and do not sort paper, food or glass waste. The most common business products that are not recycled are: paper and cardboard, plastics, electrical waste and printer cartridges, the study found.

Jonathan Ratcliffe, Business Waste’s Recycling Manager, noted that it is a very bad thing for the nation, particularly as other countries are forging ahead with commercial recycling.

“Landfill is both wasteful and expensive,” said Ratcliffe, “and businesses are hitting themselves in the bank balance because of their inability or unwillingness to recycle. It’s not a great step implementing a green policy, and it saves money almost from the start.”

Also, the study found that some companies are prepared to break the law in order to reduce or eliminate their waste-handling costs. But fortunately, “the government is introducing new incentive techniques for local small and medium enterprises such as,. green policies, recycling, tax breaks for energy efficiency, and the introduction of the landfill tax, which penalizes organizations that do not recycle waste.”

“At up to $102 per ton going to landfill, it soon adds up for companies that don’t recycle,” said Ratcliffe. “Our company is committed to the vision of a zero-waste, 100% recycled economy. We do our best to help our clients reduce their waste bills.”