Green Industries SA news – Autumn 2024
- GISA news
May 16, 2024
Welcome to the first Green Industries SA (GISA) news update for 2024. We will regularly update you on our grant programs, partnerships and projects enabling a more circular economy for South Australia. Accelerating the transition to a circular economy is essential to meet the state’s goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
As acknowledged recently by an industry news publication (South Australia – the leader of the recycling pack) SA continues to lead the country in resource recovery and landfill diversion rates. However, we acknowledge this is only one element of the circular economy and there is more work to do in making this transition.
GISA is committed to helping SA businesses and householders to avoid and minimise waste, increase diversion rates and maximise the value of resources through reuse, repair, recycling, remanufacturing and recovery pathways, as well as working to ensure design, stewardship and market development are also part of the conversation.
Please share this email to others with an interest in sustainability and the circular economy.
Josh Wheeler, A/Chief Executive
Give a sheet for the Planet: Textiles drop-off day coming to SA on 25 May
Textiles and fabric are one of the hardest items to divert from landfill. In a South Australian first, we’re partnering with BlockTexx and several councils to host Give a Sheet for the Planet linen drop-off drives across metro Adelaide.
Collected linen will be decommissioned locally by the Bedford Group, SA’s largest employer for people with a disability, and then transported to BlockTexx’s state-of-the-art textile recovery facility in Queensland, where it will be broken down into new recycled materials that can be used by Australian manufacturers to create a range of new products.
The collection drive is scheduled for Saturday 25 May, 9 am to 3 pm, with 8 collection locations running at metro council sites.
Which Bin? campaign to return in 2024
Filming has wrapped on the 2024 Which Bin? campaign, and popular recycling hero, Which Bin Vin, is set to return to your screens in late May with new recycling tips.
The campaign will place a focus on the how and the why of recycling household food and garden organics.
Learn more
River Murray flood clean-up continues
GISA continues to lead clean-up efforts in the River Murray, following the 2022–23 flood event, helping the community get back to business as usual.
To date, 23,645t of flood-affected materials have been removed from the region.
Single-use plastic bans: South Australia continues to Replace the Waste
In 2021, South Australia became the first Australian jurisdiction to prohibit the sale, supply or distribution of single-use plastic drinking straws, cutlery, and beverage stirrers, under the Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020.
Banned items now also include expanded polystyrene (EPS) cups, bowls, plates and clamshell containers, oxo-degradable plastic products, single-use plastic bowls and plates, plastic-stemmed cotton buds, and plastic pizza savers.
And the list is set to grow again, with the next stage of the ban due to commence on 1 September 2024.
Women in Circular Economy
With the 2024 scholarship winner to be announced soon, hear about the benefits of the program from previous winners.
Circular Textiles Roundtable: 28 May
FREE EVENT: Help to identify opportunities to increase the circularity of the textile and fashion industries in South Australia.
Circular procurement
Our knowledge hub provides tools to help you incorporate circular economy principles into your procurement activities.
Recently the GISA board and executive team spent a day with the Department of the Premier and Cabinet’s Strategic Foresight Unit envisioning what a cleaner, greener and more circular South Australia by 2030 might look like, and what steps the agency needs to take to facilitate and accelerate the transition.
This work is informing a new strategic plan for GISA, and we look forward to sharing this with you in due course and partnering on shared objectives.
As a board, we see GISA’s leading policy work to remove problematic wastes, like single-use plastic, and the focus on improved infrastructure and services to increase resource recovery as a cornerstone to that goal.
Increasing awareness of the need for a more circular economy and changing our behaviour across the state at every level, from small households to big businesses, will be a priority for GISA and the Board.
Nikki Govan, Presiding Member
