About Inside Waste

Inside Waste

Overview

Inside Waste is an Australian trade news service for the waste management and resource recovery industry, published online at insidewaste.com.au with a companion print magazine. It reports on the business of waste: council collection contracts, recycling markets, landfill and levy policy, energy-from-waste projects, equipment, enforcement actions by environmental regulators, and the companies and consultants who operate across the sector. The service is published by Prime Creative Media, the Melbourne-based business-to-business publisher, from Melbourne, Victoria.

The site publishes daily news, features and opinion, with part of its content reserved for subscribers. Its coverage is organised into categories such as Latest News, Circular Economy, Councils, Landfills, Energy from Waste, FOGO (food organics and garden organics), PFAS, Hazardous Waste, Equipment and Waste Contractors. Alongside the news service, the Inside Waste brand has produced an industry research series, the Inside Waste Industry Report, and is a presenting partner, with its sister magazine Waste Management Review, of the annual Waste Innovation and Recycling Awards.

History

Inside Waste was launched in 2004. According to its LinkedIn profile, it began as the official publication of the Waste Management Association of Australia, the industry association for the sector, and it built its position as a record of the industry's news, projects and people. The publication is headquartered in South Melbourne, Victoria, per the same profile.

The title's research arm dates to the early 2010s: the Inside Waste Industry Report series was first delivered in 2011–12, with a second iteration in 2014–15 and a third whose chapters drew on 2017–18 data, examining the volumes and value of waste generated and collected in Australia, recovery rates, state-by-state comparisons and the impact of commodity prices on industry revenue. A further chapter covered policy and regulation as it stood in 2019, including the National Waste Policy, the Australian Packaging Covenant, container deposit schemes and single-use plastic bans. The magazine also ran an annual consultants survey, whose results it published each March, and in 2018 it joined with the Waste Management Association of Australia to hold the inaugural Resource Recovery Excellence Awards, also branded the Inside Waste Awards.

In September 2018, Prime Creative Media announced the purchase of Mayfam Media's titles Inside Waste, Cranes & Lifting and Inside Construction — its second acquisition in two months — bringing Inside Waste into the Prime Creative portfolio alongside its existing waste industry magazine, Waste Management Review. Prime Creative Media has published the title since, producing it with its in-house team of business journalists.

Content and Coverage

Inside Waste's daily news file reflects the operating concerns of the Australian waste sector. In October 2026 its coverage included: the City of Melbourne's rollout of 500 solar-powered smart bins across the CBD, Southbank and the Yarra River parks; industrial action disrupting council waste collections in Melbourne's Hume municipality; criticism by industry groups, including the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia, of delays to national packaging reform; an Australian PFAS-removal technology winning the 2026 CARE Award at the International CleanUp Conference in Adelaide; and new national data showing Australia generated 79 million tonnes of waste in 2024–25. Regulator activity is a staple: the site reported the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority securing a $2.24 million enforceable undertaking from Opal Packaging Australia and prosecutions over illegal dumping and waste storage.

Feature coverage goes deeper into technology and practice — recent examples include an artificial intelligence platform giving materials recovery facilities real-time visibility of contamination and lost revenue, the trial of a battery-electric Mercedes-Benz eEconic collection truck by REMONDIS Australia in Brisbane, and analysis of biofuel feedstocks. Other stories in the same period covered Tyre Stewardship Australia's $550,000 incentive program, which offers local councils up to $25,000 each to trial recycled tyre rubber in road asphalt for the first time, and revised weekend hours at Shellharbour City Council's Dunmore Recycling and Waste Disposal Depot in New South Wales. Opinion is a regular strand, with contributions from consultants and industry figures on levies, packaging targets and circular economy policy. The site also carries equipment and product coverage for operators, including machinery assessments such as slow-speed shredders for processing bulky materials, and reports on waste collection fleets and garbage truck technology, reflecting the purchasing interests of its contractor readership. Some stories are labelled "Online Subscription", indicating they sit behind the site's subscriber paywall.

Audience and Reach

Inside Waste is aimed squarely at professionals who lead, work in, or supply to the waste and resource recovery sector: council waste managers, contractors, landfill and facility operators, recyclers, consultants, equipment suppliers and regulators. A trade publications directory lists Inside Waste as a bi-monthly print publication with a verified print circulation of 5,486 or more; that figure comes from the directory listing rather than a current publisher audit, and is presented here on that basis. The scale of the online archive indicates the depth of the service's reach: the site's article index runs to more than 520 pages of stories.

The title's industry standing is also reflected in its events role. The Waste Innovation and Recycling Awards 2026, presented in partnership with Inside Waste and Waste Management Review, were scheduled for 29 October 2026 in Melbourne, on the final night of Waste Expo Australia, with Prime Creative Media's head of awards and conferences, Caitlyn Douglas, describing the awards as a showcase for the people and organisations shaping the sector's future.

Digital Presence

The Inside Waste website is the centre of the service: it carries daily news and features, a searchable archive, category browsing across the sector's main topics, and subscription offers for premium content and the print magazine. Articles published in the days before this profile was compiled — including stories dated 14 October 2026 — confirm the site is actively maintained. The title maintains a LinkedIn showcase page under "Inside Waste au", which records its 2004 launch, its South Melbourne headquarters and its origins as the waste association's official publication. Its media kit, offered for download from the website, sets out advertising and participation options for industry suppliers.

Ownership and Organisation

Inside Waste is owned and published by Prime Creative Media, which acquired the title from Mayfam Media in September 2018. Prime Creative Media is a Melbourne-based business-to-business publishing and events company led by chief executive John Murphy, with Christine Clancy as chief operating officer. The publisher describes itself as Australia's leading B2B publisher, with a portfolio of more than 30 magazine titles across sectors including commercial road transport, food and beverage, coffee, manufacturing, construction, infrastructure and waste; that is the publisher's own description of its scale.

Within the group, Inside Waste sits in the waste portfolio beside Waste Management Review, which Prime Creative Media launched in 2015, and the two titles jointly present the annual waste industry awards. The site's own description notes that Inside Waste is produced by a team of journalists at Prime Creative Media who engage with key influencers in the waste sector; current stories carry staff bylines, including Mike Wheeler, whose name appears across its October 2026 news coverage.

Contact and Availability

Inside Waste is published from Melbourne, Victoria, and is available online at insidewaste.com.au, where readers can browse free news, subscribe for premium content and the bi-monthly print magazine, and download the title's media kit. Subscription, advertising and editorial enquiries are handled through the website and through Prime Creative Media's Melbourne head office. In line with this directory's policy, the public business email field for this listing is left empty.