Growth sees waste more than double

Australia's economic production continues to grow but at the price of increased waste, with rubbish more than doubling in 18 years.

Australia's waste increased at more than double the rate of economic production over an 18 year period.

According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS) the amount of combined industrial and household waste increased by 163 per cent between 1996 and 2014 while gross value added to economic production only rose by 73 per cent.

"We compare the growth of the economy with some of the environmental pressures ... to try and draw a story of how interrelated the economy and the environment are," ABS Environmental Statistic Section Assistant Director Peter Comisari told AAP.

The report also put a price tag on everything that could theoretically be sold from Australia's environment including resources like iron ore, land, timber and fish.

It evaluated Australia's value at $5.8 trillion in June 2015, almost double its value nine years earlier.

The rise in value could mainly be attributed to property price rises and increasing demand for mineral resources, Mr Comisari said.

Ecosystems, such as the Great Barrier Reef, have not been included in the overall value.

"That's currently in the too hard basket ... at this stage there are no national statistical agencies that have numbers on that," Mr Comisari said.

In 2015 81 per cent of Australia's natural value was held in land, accounting for more than $4 trillion of the $5.8 trillion total.

Mineral and energy resources made up most of the remaining natural value.


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Source: AAP



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