JNI Constructive Journalism contest

https://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/2020-06-11/abc-news-constructive-solutions-
journalism/12335272
It's about thinking about how we can show a more accurate picture of the world including the

bad and the good, the grey areas in between and the necessary context.

Importantly, we did not advocate for any solution.

What we hear less about is what individuals and communities are already doing to address
problems.

"You have to ask what are the potential solutions, has anyone experienced the same thing,
what can we learn from what have other people done?" he said.

The Bad:
Improper or lack of waste management leads to:
 Furthermore, waste disposal is ‘the systematic actions which manage waste from its
origin to final disposal’ and also has large consequences for mankind. Every day each
human creates around 1.2 kilograms of waste, meaning that everyday 8.4 billion
kilograms of waste are produced, which can pollute the environment and occupies a
lot of space.
 Takes up space  deforestation  extinction etc.
 Pollution of water sources
 Soil contamination
 Puts humans at risk (children near disposal facilities, waste disposal workers,
employees whose workplaces manufacture come into contact with waste materials

The Good:
 Homeless paid to pick up rubbish
 Smart bins Melbourne

The Grey:
Can large companies move to sustainable processes without losing detrimental amounts of
income

The necessary context:

Global/National
Pay as you throw – Athenticate
 How does this encourage fairness in the community?
  How does authenticate support PAYT?
 How is the cost calculated?
 How will this lead to an increase in recycling and a more sustainable future?
 Who collects the waste if it isn’t councils? 
 Removes waste collection from rates, councils can offer better prices – does this mean
garbage men are losing their jobs?
 Would it be possible for people to take part in this program, only place a small
amount of their rubbish for collection and take the rest to this tip?
Auckland Office:
Level 27, PwC Building,
188 Quay St, Auckland, 1010
Phone:  03 359 6125
Email: chris@authenticate.co.nz

MRA CONSULTING GROUP – PAYT etc

Questions for MRA

 If a company got in contact with MRA what advice and recommendations are usually
made to them?
Fundamentally, if we get renewable energy prolific and cheap that will potentially
correct up ot 70% of environmental harm we human do on the planet, it will allow us to
expand and grow technologies and processes that reduce some of the most harmful
effects humans have, such as allowing us to open up new deserts for cropping through
cheap desalination and therefore put less pressure on natural systems and clearing
natural systems. The two biggest forces we need to act on is getting cheap renewable
energy and to prevent species lost and habitat destruction, which is irreversible. If we do
those two, many of our current environment problems improve, not least of which is
climate change. So, the rollout of renewable energy is by far one of the most important
things we can do. We can’t just keep running an economy that knocks down a koala
habitat every 5 minuets to build another house that is completely unsustainable.
Destroying future value for short term gain.
 Halve waste is the most successful program in Australia at reducing landfill. What
was the core ideas behind this program and how was it so successful?
Waste is important in both empowering local people and it has a fairly significant
environmental footprint, it represents around 3% of emissions in Australia and probably
around 10-15% of indirect emissions. Recycling and waste is something everyone can do,
halve waste was successful because it empowered local people, it said ‘do you want to
keep building landfills or do you want a more sustainable waste system that uses
recycling, even though it runs at higher costs, the landfill price went up by and the
revenue funded HalveWaste.

How can the regular person help combat large issues like renewable energy sources and
habitat destruction?

Vote, vote, vote. These are ultimately decisions of the government. Yes, people can do
little bits to influence their local community, but ultimately, we need to shift the policy
settings that make this economically rational. At the moment it is economically rational
to build another coal powered fire station, it is economically rational to knock down
koala habitats to build houses, it is economically rational to overuse landfills, cause
recycling is more expensive. Those are decisions of government, we have to build in
what I call the externalities, the unpriced negative effects of some of these decision
need to built into the costs of doing some of these things, therefore it will become
rational to protect koala habitats and to recycle. Whenever we are fighting economics,
we are fighting uphill. Until you get the economics right it is very difficult for individuals
to do much, they can do a little bit and you should, but policy needs to be changed first.

 The idea behind a Pay as you throw system has been considered in Australia before
but isn’t used, would you be able to tell me about PAYT and the positive implications
you think it could have if we used it in Australia?
Pay as you throw is about sending a different price signal to residents and waste
generators, if you put more waste out you pay more, if you put less waste out you pay
less, more recycling means you pay less, in other words, the things that are valued in
society you pay less for. Garbage pricing is by and large based on the volume of the bin,
but the problem with that is it is very inaccurate. Say I run a pub and use a three-meter
skip, I pay the same whether there is one glass bottle in the skip or half a ton of food
waste, so volume-based pricing is very inaccurate. Now PAYT is getting more accurate
around the volume and in Australia the move is going towards weight-based billing and
the volume is becoming irrelevant. That is coming in the commercial space, no councils
are doing it at a domestic level in Australia yet, but I imagine over the next decade some
councils will begin to offer a discounted rate for people who produce a smaller amount
of waste and larger amount of recycling. One of the programs I am encouraging at the
moment is instead of billing by weight is educating and challenging by weight, what I
mean by that is that there is no reason we couldn’t weight all of Suburb A’s bins and
 Suburb B’s bins and run a competition to see who can reduce their weights sooner.
Nothing to do with billing but it is about empowering and engaging the community.

Is engaging the community all about making them understand the responsibility they
have or are there other ways you try and achieve that?
Ultimately we are also trying to say them money and reduce the environmental
footprint from landfills, nobody wants a landfill next to them, we fill them up too fast
and are losing a recyclable materials from the economy. It makes no sense to lose
organic material into landfill where it generates methane which could use all the
organics as compost. It has always been cheaper to landfill that organics, that needs
to change. We need to do it nationally. Only 17% of a households waste is
recyclables but 60-65% of waste a household generates is food and organics, yet we
send the food and organics to landfill and recycle the plastics and containers. The
reason we do that is because it looks like a lot and is high volume. People are starting
to ask more and more why aren’t we recycling organics and using them as compost?
Now most of New South Wales, all of Perth Adelaide and Melbourne are using a
three bin system and recycling food and garden organics and that’s the big trend and
I suspect that over the next 5 years we will see that roll out over all households in
Australia. That will empower people to do their bit, at home everyone will have the
opportunity to save the planet by putting the right thing in the right bin. Small step
as it is it empowers every person in Australia.

 If Australia doesn’t start becoming more sustainable as a country what will happen?
Australia will not be in a good place, all said we register for 1.3% of global emissions,
we have to be on that fast track to a renewable future. As do all countries, or we will
experience a 3-5 degree temperature rise and the society, economy, jobs that we
know now will cease to exist above 3 degrees, life will be completely different. If you
believe the science and I as a scientist don’t quibble with the science from every
reputable organisation on the planet says we need to get emissions down and get
temperature down to maximum 1.5 degrees. So I say to every household, every
resident, every government, we need to fast track this transition and do it at an
economically rational way but we need to do it quickly. The emphasis is on speed,
not on cost and that is the challenge we have politically at the moment because the
emphasis is on cost. We need to bear that cost, and that is the unfortunate of
climate change, we need to bear a cost now to protect a future. All of the
economists say if we bear a small cost now we will save a larger cost in the future.
But like all humans we tend to resolve to what is in the hear and now and not what is
in our future, we tend to be more comfrable debating the here and now. All the
empowerment we can do around energy, habitat and waste we should do, but don’t
forget about the big policy shifts.

How can the everyday Australia make a difference?

Clean Up Australia
  It all started 30 years ago, how has the work of Clean Up Australia changed since
then? More about prevention of waste? What kind of work do you do to prevent
waste?
 What inspired you to work in the sustainability industry?
 How much of the work is about engaging and encouraging the community?
 What can the regular person change about their lifestyle in order to become more
sustainable and eco-friendly?
 Could you explain to me the function and aim of the Greening the Green initiative?
(follow up Q’s)
 How do you track and measure the impact all clean up events have on the
environment? How to you count what rubbish has been picked up?

Community

Bridge to work Little Rock Ark

Spend a lot of time singing hillsongs, simple set up in the pandemic. Compassionate. Not a
super well funded church. `

 This is a really great idea, how did this program get organised and put into motion?
WE didn’t dream it up, we got to bring it to life, the city of Albequerky New Mexico that got
out attention. A lot of our council board of directors, it captured the cities imagination.
None of the well-funded groups wanted to do it, so they looked at the Canvas Community
Church and we took it on board. We decided it was worth giving it a shot, after some
research and leg work, we sat around the table with the council and city managers and
hatched the idea and launched it 18months ago almost. It was well received.
They didn’t have lots of funding just relationships and the willingness to give it a try.

 How has this been accepted by the community?

 Have you met any of the homeless people taking part in this program? How does this
program make them feel?
Yes, I was the administrator. It took over my whole life for a while. 3 days a week. Monday
Tuesday and Thursday. I would meet the homeless at our church and we did an intake form
to understand where they were in life, if they had govt I’d or birth certificate.
We would go out and work, hiring drivers. The city would give us lists of streets to clean up.
Little Rock is sprawling, and we had to travel a lot – which was stressful.

 Do you think having a days work gives them some money but also a sense of pride to
earn money themselves?
Certainly, I think they enjoyed having something productive to do, with other people. It was
good, at the end of everyday, everyone was paid in cash, but they’d get $40 for 4hrs work
and a lunch. If folks wanted to get birth certificate or something, we could get that done for
them, I would help them get that done. Some people needed to get back to where ‘home’
was, and they’d spend some money they earned on a bus ticket.
I don’t think anyone was dramatically altered by picking up trash for a day – but it’s a matter
of saying “you’re making the city look better, we are grateful for you.”

Sometimes over time as we got to know people better, we could point people in a different
direction if they were ready to go there. Some needed addiction treatment, but weren’t
ready to ask, which is part of the disease. But by being there if someone asks for it, we can
give it to them.

 As well as getting the chance to work, the homeless people taking part in the
program get the chance to talk with the program supervisors about what they want
to achieve in life – how important is that for them?
City would pay for lunch, we would have it at a park or one of the churches and there with a
life coach we would take over lunch with each homeless person, find out their story and
where they wanted to go in life. If they were in the market for work.

Could only take out 8 people at a time with our limited resources, had to turn people away.

 Also (and this is something that interests me a fair bit), have you noticed that while
this program is running the streets appear cleaner and there is less rubbish?
Certainly, the city has a crew of full-time workers that clean the streets that would respond
to citizen complaints. At first when the city sent us to areas that they wanted us to celan by
a 10-day deadline. We were doing it so fast; they dropped the deadline. We were cleaning
streets before people could complain of trash. It helps the neighbourhood, and nobody is
responsible for cleaning it up it becomes a dumping ground and the community suffers. We
got thankyous from neighbours. Since the pandemic, we’ve been getting calls from people
wondering when we will be back because it is far dirtier.

Looking forward want to get homeless working on a more extended basis to give them
security and a goal like deposits or getting a full-time job.