This last full week of October has been very busy for AORA with a Board Meeting on Tuesday 25 October followed by two very busy days at Waste Expo Australia 2022 in Melbourne. That trend is not about to ease any time soon either as we now gear-up for AORA’s Annual General Meeting and Annual Members Meeting on Thursday 10 November at The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney.

We hope that many of our members will be able to make the event to hear first-hand on the future direction of your Association, the challenges, the opportunities and the Associations focus as we head rapidly towards a new year.

Four months into the role of National Executive Officer for AORA, I feel that I am beginning to understand the industry better every day and consequently, I am starting to formulate more clearly how I see the Association developing and where our priorities need to be focused. Obviously, I will consult and work closely with the AORA Board on all of these matters. What is absolutely clear to me, however, is the need for an effective, strong and focused peak industry body for the organics recycling industry in Australia - AORA.

The issues and the challenges are not diminishing and are never likely to, so we have to work together effectively and collaboratively. AORA members, sponsors and stakeholders will increasingly become familiar with my mantra that to be successful as an industry and as an industry peak body we are going to need to advocate, communicate, collaborate, educate and innovate.

 

Our thoughts have lately been on our members, their communities and the emergency services personnel trying to meet the extraordinary challenges of severe floods and associated damage across many regions of the east coast of Australia. The weather, particularly the levels of rain and associated flooding has been astonishing with historic records breaking. The challenges of this and the associated anguish has not been lost on any of us and our thoughts and best wishes go out to everyone affected.

John McKew

National Executive Officer

Australian Organics Recycling Association

The upcoming AORA Member Forum: Organics Recycling: the current challenges, solutions and opportunities has a workshop session specifically to address the next steps for AORA members in a coordinated response to national guidance, including how to work with regulators at the state level to achieve feasible outcomes.

We strongly encourage you to attend this event and be part of the conversation. This will be a frank and open workshop and we will utilise your input for our response.

For more information, read the full article.

Waste Expo Australia 2022 was held on 26 & 27 October at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, proudly supported by AORA. Waste Expo Australia is the country's largest gathering of waste management and resource recovery professionals, which brings together leading solution providers in the waste management, recycling, resource recovery and sustainability sectors. 

After a forced hiatus for a couple of years due to COVID, the event kicked off on Wednesday morning, 26 October with large crowds anxious to see what was new in waste management.

AORA’s National Executive Officer, John McKew and AORA Victorian State Coordinator, Doug Wilson, were present at the AORA trade site and were kept very busy fielding a broad range of questions on the Associations role and activities, the current status of organics recycling in Australia and handing our copies of the AORA Vision 2031 Roadmap document. It was apparent that organics recycling is generating a lot of interest, driven by renewed government targets within the sector and the strong focus on the rollout of FOGO across the country at a local government (i.e., council) level.

On Thursday afternoon, AORA held a 40-minute panel session in the Waste Summit Theatre 1 as part of the Expo, titled “Are you Good to FOGO?”. Moderated by AORA’s National Executive Officer, John McKew, the panel comprised Lorna Mathieson (Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning), Andrew Dougall (Sustainability Victoria), April Williams (City of Monash) and Sage Hahn (Bio Gro/AORA Victoria Committee Chair) and examined the challenges and opportunities of implementing FOGO from a state government, local council and processors perspective.

With over 120 attendees attending the panel session, it was obvious that this was a topic of great interest with plenty on interaction and questions from the audience. The sentiment was strong on the importance of FOGO as an integral piece of a successful circular economy but with a critical caveat – overcoming the current levels of contamination within the FOGO feedstock stream must be a priority focus. This will require collaboration, communication and commitment from right across the value chain including households, local councils, state governments, regulators and organics processors. If the “Are you Good to FOGO?” panel session was any indication, then a very good start has been made.

AORA Member, Soil Recycling Co., recently purchased two Terex Ecotec machines – TTS 620T trommel and TSC 65T stacking conveyor – from Australian Distributor and AORA Partner, Finlay Waste and Recycling. Soil Recycling Co. is a mobile soil recycling, remediation, screening and solid inert waste reduction company servicing the construction industry in Victoria, Australia.

Chris Keay (Soil Recycling Co. Director), knew he would get excellent aftermarket support. Chris said, “The TTS 620T is innovatively designed and operating exceptionally well, but it’s the service from Finlay that has been first class, they have been attentive and provided great back up and support. We were super happy with the trommel that when we looked at purchasing a stacker we couldn’t look past the TSC 65T and the decision was easy”.

For more information, contact Finlay 1800 777 300 or email sales@finlay.com.au or read more.

Spend the day with us at The Lakes Golf Club beginning with the AORA AGM from 10am - 10.45, the Members Forum from 11am - 5pm and finishing the day with Christmas networking drinks on the deck.

If you are unable to attend, a proxy form is available via admin@aora.org.au

Sponsors and Members will be presenting their organics processing equipment/concepts at Interaction Tables during the afternoon and through on-screen presentations in the evening.

We are proud to welcome Sphere Infrastructure Partners as an AORA Bronze Sponsor!

on the discussion paper, Environmental Regulation Reform: A strategic review of regulatory delivery and fees for industry regulation.

The three main reforms resulting from the amendments to Part V Division 3 are:

• regulation of prescribed activities rather than prescribed premises under a licence

• removal of the requirement for a separate works approval

• removal of the registration of premises regime.

These reforms require amendment of Schedule 1 of the EP Regulations to replace prescribed premises with prescribed activities and creation of a new fees framework to support these changes. It is intended that draft regulations will be prepared for further consultation during 2023 and finalisation in December 2023.

The US Composting Council Conference is in January 2023 in Carlsbad, California (near Los Angeles). Matthew Cotton (keynote speaker at this years AORA conference) is seeking interest from AORA members for a tour of new and interesting composting facilities. If you are interested in more information, please let Alex know - alex@aora.org.au

If you have a story, link or news to share with AORA members, please email Alex