ANL's Environmental Statement

35 years on, ANL is a company with a long and proud history of caring for the environment, now operating in a natural & economic environment facing environmental issues on a scale never before seen both nationally and globally. Today the Australian environment has never needed our help more with Greenhouse gas emissions and the reversal of carbon depletion in Australian soils recognised as our greatest environmental challenges.
Whereas previous generations grew up with household incinerators and weekend trips to ‘the tip’, our generation thrives on recycling initiatives, resource recovery and management of sustainable global environmental solutions.
As Australia’s largest organics recycler, recovering in excess of 500,000 tonnes per annum of organic materials previously landfilled, ANL is a key industry driver in the development of sustainable solutions.
The production of high quality compost products at ANL’s eight composting facilities in Australia has the benefit of reducing greenhouse emissions, through avoided landfill and carbon sequestration. This can be measured in terms of potentially millions of tonnes of reduced greenhouse gasses to atmosphere, and ANL’s operations alone equate to the equivalent of taking 150,000 cars off the road per annum.

Company Environmental Goals

ANL’s core environmental goals are structured around bench marking our performance with regard to:
1.    Company Environmental Management - Via ISO 14001 certification
2.    Product Environmental Performance – Via certification to 3 Australian Standards, and NASAA (National Association of Sustainable Agriculture Australia) certification.
3.    Carbon Based Product Development – Seeking ongoing development of technical data associated with product parameters assisting carbon sequestration linking the sustainability of recycling organic wastes with the incorporation of stable humus products into Australian’s carbon depleted soils. Modern biological farming methods are adapting to the importance of eco friendly agriculture and the implementation of conservation farming, the key drivers being the need to address soil carbon levels.

Agricultural Productivity, Carbon Sequestration and Soil Health

As stated at a recent compost industry event by Verity Firth, NSW Minister Assisting the Minister for the Environment, “There is twice as much carbon in soils as there is in all the vegetation above ground, including all the forests. A 1% increase in the soil carbon in 10% of Australia’s agricultural soils would remove 10 year’s legacy load of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Australian saying, ‘living off the sheeps back’, is no less true today than it was a century ago. Clearly, agricultural production will remain the heart of the Australian economy for decades to come, however the changing global environment has brought into focus the previously unbudgeted value of soil carbon in relation to soil health and agricultural productivity.

Australia’s environmental superannuation!

Returning carbon to the soil is the environmental superannuation policy, ‘we all have to have’. Building soil health via the application of ANL’s large range of composts, soils and organic mulching products is the best way of reducing greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere, making Australia a more beautiful place to live in.
‘Have your say’ about how we should all bench mark environmental performance and measure sustainability ‘together we can make a difference’, via:  www.carbongardening.com.au