Aussies urged to reconsider rubbish habits as NSW landfills reach tipping point

We bin it and forget about it, but the harsh reality is, we're running out of room to put our rubbish.

Speaking about the lifespan of landfills in New South Wales, former Attorney General Philip Ruddock told A Current Affair: "There is only enough capacity for about seven years."

Ruddock is now the Mayor of Hornsby and believes we've reached a tipping point.

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"When we run out of areas that are able to receive the waste we are done," he said.

A Current Affair was invited to tour Veolia's waste management site at Spring Farm in Sydney's west to get the low down.

There, recyclables are sorted by people and machines then packed into saleable materials like cardboard, paper and metals and sold to manufacturers in Australia and overseas.

Veolia Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Richard Kirkman said improving our recycling efforts would help buy valuable time for existing landfill sites around the country.

"Then we will invest in new equipment to sort all this product out and then people who make things will buy this (recycled material) back and put it into their new product," Kirkman said.

"If all those things happen then we will have a complete circular economy of materials and we won't have to worry about landfill."

Watch the full video in the player above.