Australia is facing a crisis caused by the willingness of its citizens to do the right thing by the environment, and the lack of willingness by our governments to embrace its citizens' desires.
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The country's recycling program has been brought to a standstill by a Chinese ban on our exports of plastics. Processor SKM is facing collapse, with 60 per cent of its almost 300,000 tonnes a year of recycling waste now likely to go to landfill.
A lack of investment in state government options for recycling, and a lack of vision both federally and locally, means the efforts and goodwill shown by Australian citizens is in danger of being buried along with the waste they have sorted.
Experience will tell any person: Australians are a cynical people, and once you've lost their faith, it's not easy to recover.
Ballarat's Dennis Collins has been thinking about our recycling problems for a long time now. He's been featured on the ABC's television program War on Waste and he's just returned from Europe where he demonstrated his catalytic breakdown process to an audience of recyclers in Belgium - twice.
He introduced himself Crocodile Dundee style at a conference - "I should say G'day, I've brought you something from Down Under," and says he had the rapt attention of the audience from that point on.
Collins has been seeking investors for his process, which he claims can reduce a wide variety of wastes to their constituent elements. He's broken down everything from automobile carpet to credit cards, PVC banners to - most famously - coffee cups.
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He says the Europeans are moving so far ahead of Australia in both dealing with recyclables and legislating for the their re-use, we are losing momentum.
"I was speaking at the European Chemicals Plastic Recycling Conference," Dennis Collins says.
"There were about 50 speakers, and I was told if they held the conference a year ago, I'd have been the only one there. That's how fast it's grown."
Collins says the European Union has introduced legislation, due to be enacted in 2025, wherein a manufacturer must recycle what they have made. The loss of a major recycling facility to fire in Italy meant Collins saw an opportunity to promote his process where it was needed.
"There's 120,000 tonnes there just waiting to be recycled. We're talking mainly PVC. These regulations will come to Australia eventually. They have to. PVC can't be burnt; it's a problem child."
Collins encouraged European manufacturers to send him samples of the waste they had stockpiled, to see if his patent process could deal with it.
It could, he says. He displays dozens of plastic zip bags full of different materials clipped together, along with a sample attached of the original waste.
"So far we've been able to separate everything they've sent us," Collins says.
"We've got another 20 samples to go, and I'm positive we do it all, we'll do 40 products. We're talking to 18 of the largest companies in Europe.
"By September 18 we should have a consortium up, and we should be able to move on the first plant."
There were about 50 speakers, and I was told if they held the conference a year ago, I'd have been the only one there. That's how fast it's grown
- Dennis Collins
Dennis Collins's grandson Luke Benfield has joined the venture, travelling overseas with Collins and learning the process. He's relieving Collins, who's in his 70s, of a lot of the day-to-day pressure of the business; especially the minutiae of the grant application process.
The pair are still keeping the details of the process for breaking down waste a secret, especially as negotiations take place in Europe.
Collins says most of the companies in Europe have read his patent application and understand how the process works.
"Look it's still black-boxed yes, but it's a simple process," he says.
Benfield says they haven't discovered any waste they can't break down.
"Fake grass was one the other day; that's a new one."
"It just looks like lawn clippings when it comes back to us," says Collins.
The success of the process means that Collins is on the edge of building a test plant for his waste recycling in Europe.
"I'm 80 per cent convinced the contracts are going to be signed for a plant for Europe," he says.
"It's going to be built in Australia; our engineer in South Australia has drawn the plans. Once they get the hang of how it works, I know they are going to want more.
"We've got that $500,000 grant in South Australia from the government sitting there, but we need investors to come on board. And of course nobody wants to be the one that goes first."
As for the crisis in recycling, Dennis Collins speaks with resignation.
"As far as I'm aware, nobody is recycling plastics here (in Ballarat) since we closed. We sold our business to JJ Richards, the cardboard side of it, and he's collecting only cardboard and paper. I'm sure we were the only one collecting plastics. I gave away five semi-trailer loads of plastic, we couldn't get rid of it. I had to ship it to Melbourne, it cost me to give it away."
The storage of such huge amounts of waste is causing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to work overtime, with companies across the state being fined for breaching regulations. It's a deep source of frustration to Collins, who has advocated for change for years to no avail.
"I spoke at a forum about plastics in Queensland," Collins says.
"Queensland is going to invest $400 million in recycling. Luke and I sat up there, talking about PVC, and it's so frustrating because it's falling on deaf ears.
"You've got a person in Australia, talking to people overseas where they are crying out for solutions, and here it's like..." Collins gestures helplessly.
"I've never even met the minister here - who is it? Lily D'Ambrosio. I've met her assistant, but never the minister.
"One thing we want to talk about is recycling disposable nappies. Because we can wash, we can soak the dirty nappies in our chemical, we can boil all the rubbish that comes out and retrieve our chemical, and all that's left will be sewerage.
"We'd like a grant to test that theory, so we can prove what comes out of the nappies is suitable to be put into the sewerage system. We're talking $250,000 for testing. We want to get people on board, because so much of this goes to landfill. We can revolutionise that system, and it'll employ a lot of people in Victoria."
And Dennis Collins is all about putting investment into Victoria. His vision is to build one of his plants in Ballarat, another perhaps in Bendigo, and have smaller centres bring waste to them for recycling.
He'd build a ring of similar centres on the outskirts of Melbourne. He sees people travelling, selling nappies from vans, delivering them to households where they are needed and picking up the dirty ones for recycling.
"We'd clean them. The hydrogel in the nappy, which absorbs everything - we've got that here, I've tested this - we can take it out and put it back, it'll absorb water again. It can go to market gardens as well, or kitty litter."
The thing holding it all back, says Collins, is getting investors to take the plunge. He says governments will encourage him to apply for grants, but there must be investment from private sources to kick things off.
"Look, people are talking to me about taking things to China. Perhaps that's where the money is. As I said in front of the whole PVC industry in Queensland, I'm getting so frustrated with the idea of having to go overseas. But that's where the manufacturers are, that's where the interest in what I'm doing might have to be.
"It's so frustrating. For four years I've been going around saying, 'Look at this'."
"Everyone says they love the idea," offers Luke Benfield.
"But that's it, that's where it ends in Australia. $5 million would set up a test plant that would process 3,500 tonnes of PVC a year.
The plant in Italy, by comparison, cost 32 million Euros (around $52 million AU), says Dennis Collins.
"And in the end, we were still delivering a much better product for recycling: no folates, no carcinogens. The Europeans were really surprised and excited.
"It's incredibly frustrating, but I know it will succeed," Dennis Collins says determinedly.
