Most people would not spend much time thinking about Western Australia’s waste issues aside from considering into which bins to dump their household rubbish and recycling.
But for Marcus Geisler, waste has long been much more significant – and it is now even more so given his new role as chairman of the Waste Authority.
Mr Geisler has been appointed to take over from chairman Peter Fitzpatrick for an initial two-year term.
Increasing the awareness of waste issues is one of the many goals Mr Geisler intends to achieve while in the role and he believes this will be the decider in whether the authority achieves the targets set out in the state’s waste strategy.
“It’s not the local government or the private sector that we need to achieve the targets, it’s actually the community; the waste has to go into the right bins and people have to want to help … so if we don’t get that community engagement it won’t happen,” Mr Geisler told WA Business News.
Mr Geisler has been a member of the Waste Authority board since its inception in 2008 and was in the deputy chairman’s role when the strategy was published earlier this year.
Among its targets to improve recycling, is an increase in the proportion of Perth’s metropolitan waste diverted from landfill from 36 to 50 per cent by 2015, as well as doubling the recycling rate of construction and demolition waste.
Mr Geisler admits they are ambitious goals but, given his background, WA is unlikely to find a man more suited to the challenge.
Originally from the Netherlands, Mr Geisler came to Australia after establishing a company which recycled industrial and building waste. The company grew to eventually capture a 65 per cent share of the Netherlands market.
Mr Geisler also played a part in developing a market for recycled timber and other recycled construction and demolition waste.
He came to WA in a role with Thiess Services and is now executive general manager for Coates Hire West.
Already holding a full-time job made Mr Geisler think twice about accepting the Waste Authority chairmanship but in the end his enthusiasm for improving waste handling won out.
“If we don’t change what we’re doing we’re going to have the same outcome; the biggest challenge if we want to achieve the targets is that investments have to be made,” Mr Geisler said.
The state government has committed $17.2 million for the first year of the Waste Authority’s business case, which sets out a plan for achieving the strategy’s targets.
But Mr Geisler wants to see additional private investment funnelled into creating an integrated waste management network.
“To really have an efficient network of processing facilities we have to be able to control the flow of waste,” he said.
“We have to create a model that enables us to have an efficient waste infrastructure network so that we can get the maximum recycling and recovery.
“Right now it’s very much fragmented; construction and demolition – the private sector looks after that. With commercial and industrial, it goes to some landfills and separate collection by the private sector. Municipal solid waste is exclusive to local government.”
But in order for an integrated network to be constructed, infrastructure needed to be established – such as waste-to-energy plants – and Mr Geisler said the most likely source of that investment was the private sector.
“There’s a huge amount of investment required – local government would need to underwrite that and where are they going to get that money from?” he said.
“The best way to go is to go to the private sector.”
Another challenge will be pushing the case for the state government to increase the landfill levy; the levy went up 300 per cent in 2010 and the government has been cautious about introducing another increase since.
But Mr Geisler’s view is that a levy increase is necessary to further reduce the amount of waste going to landfill – and he’s not timid about raising his views. “Waste is non-political, it’s an essential service and ministers are in politics. So it’ll always be a balancing act between politics and achieving the outcome,” he said.
“(But) all stakeholders understand that if we want to achieve our strategy and our targets, the levy will have to go up.”
Mr Geisler said the government was showing positive signs of making change because of the fact a long-term strategy had been drawn up and a five-year business plan endorsed. “We’ve never had that before; it’s only ever been from year to year,” he said.
Community engagement was a very high priority for the Waste Authority to enable it to change and it was part of all the short, medium and long-term goals of the business case.
“And you can’t change behaviour in one year; it’s a long process and you have to stick to the process,” Mr Geisler said.
