A new data-based organisation called ASPIRE aims to take the costly process of waste disposal and turn it into a revenue stream, with an emphasis on the automotive industry.
The Advisory System for Processing, Innovation & Resource Exchange, born out of the CSIRO’s Data61 specialist data arm, is now a standalone digital marketplace designed to create a circular economy for Australia’s growing waste problem.
Director Cameron McKenzie tells AutoTalk the automotive industry has a significant role to play in being socially responsible for its contribution to the waste crisis and actively working to turn back the trash-tide.
McKenzie says new car retailers and the thousands of servicing and repair workshops across the country all contribute directly and indirectly to the problem and should not be making excuses when it comes to pitching in.
“Saying that it’s easier to send it to landfill is a cop-out,” he says.
“Dealers are currently paying to get rid of these resources when it could be turned into a profitable revenue stream with someone else around the corner,”he explains.
ASPIRE works as a virtual meeting point to connect dealers and workshops with other businesses who can happily turn tyres, used oil, spark plugs and oil filters, barrels of dirty fuel, crates of worn clutches, brake rotors and pads, into something else.
One ASPIRE partner, Corex, has developed a “cradle-to-cradle” solution or reclaiming solid sheet thermoplastic products which once most commonly supplied local parts manufacturers to the factory production line at Holden, Ford and Toyota plants.
The business recycles more than 3000 tonnes of thermoplastic – a nonbiodegradable plastic – every year, and can turn old oil containers, bumpers and interior plastics into its signature CoreFlute sheeting, a warehouse storage option common for transitioning away from cardboard.
McKenzie is in discussions with a major council in Melbourne’s west to conduct a waste audit of the dealership businesses in its municipality, which he says could break open the true extent of the automotive waste problem.
But he wants to put dealers on the right side of the fence.
“Dealers who want to be leaders in the waste industry and set an example for others can be part of a circular economy that is not only socially responsible but equitable,” he says.
“This programme could be massive for the automotive sector; it’s about giving dealers and the wider auto industry like body repairers and independent workshops the tools to effectively reduce their waste and recover resources,” he explains.
ASPIRE says increased population and affluence encourage waste production. As more people move to an area, at more food, buy more cars and build more houses, waste is produced. And the CSIRO attributes nearly 80% of Australia waste generation to commercial, industrial, construction and demolition activity.
“The automotive industry needs to create a system similar to the construction industry which is required by law to recycle its waste carefully,” McKenzie advises.
The Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce heaps praise on accredited automotive recyclers for keeping as much scrap from landfill as possible by on-selling parts to give them a second or even a third life, but more needs to be done.
“We put 200,000 tonnes of unrecycled automotive waste in the ground every year, not the metal, all the other material,” chief executive Geoff Gwilym says.
“About 64,000 tonnes of the wasted material is in Victoria alone,” he explains.
With nearly 1.2 million new vehicles sold last year, the VACC says this inevitably pushes another million scrap vehicles out of circulation and into landfill by the end of 2019.
The auto waste problem will be the focus of discussions at the next VACC Industry Council meeting in late August.
Out of 180 countries, according to Yale University, Australia ranks only 21st in the world on its Environmental Performance Index with a global ranking of 13 for water/ sanitation; 46 for heavy metal exposure; 61 for biodiversity and habitat; 98 in climate and energy.
Auto Recyclers Association of Australia executive director David Nolan says: “Compared with Japan, China,
Europe and the US, Australia’s regulatory system for vehicle recycling is totally inadequate.
- “Automotive waste has a significant environmental impact because vehicles are highly intensive of material resources,” he concludes.
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