Category: Insights

This article summarises the latest issue of Beyond Fast and Easy Answers, the personal LinkedIn newsletter by NEPSA Director Chresten Heide-Anderson. The newsletter explores how cognitive biases and decision-making affect complex technical and policy questions. In FIRE-04, rooftop PV fire safety is used as an illustration of a broader question: can we choose a fire-safe

Residents in Sydney’s Northern Beaches have access to recurring collection of expanded polystyrene packaging through the Kimbriki Resource Recovery Centre. Northern Beaches Council runs monthly collection days for rigid, clean, white and dry EPS used to protect appliances and electronics. Domestic quantities can be delivered free of charge, while contaminated EPS — including material containing

From 1 October 2026, Alberta expanded its residential recycling system to accept additional packaging materials, including foam packaging, across the province. The change is part of Alberta’s Extended Producer Responsibility system for packaging and paper products. Circular Materials, the Producer Responsibility Organization responsible for Alberta’s programme, says residents can now recycle the same expanded range

A new peer-reviewed study mapping expanded polystyrene flows in China shows that recycled EPS is becoming a significant source of material supply. Published in Cell Reports Sustainability in September 2026, the study reports that China produced 3.94 million tonnes of EPS in 2023. Recycled EPS accounted for 28% of total EPS supply, up from 25%

Fire engineering depends on codes, tests, models, research and professional experience. Each provides essential evidence. None removes the need for judgement. In the third article in his Beyond Fast and Easy Answers series, NEPSA Director Chresten Heide-Anderson examines how the framing of a technical question can influence the answer that follows. The article, When the

The U.S. Plastics Pact has removed expanded polystyrene transport packaging from its Problematic & Unnecessary Materials List after reviewing evidence of recycling at scale. It is the first packaging format to be removed from the list since its establishment. The decision applies specifically to moulded EPS transport packaging used to protect durable goods, temperature-sensitive products

The second article in Chresten Heide-Anderson’s Beyond Fast and Easy Answers series examines how expectations and early hypotheses may shape the interpretation of fire evidence. A fire leaves behind a scene, not an explanation. Investigators may have witness accounts, recordings and information from the emergency response, but they cannot observe the complete event again. They

How do scientific findings become public narratives? And why can those narratives become surprisingly difficult to change, even when new evidence emerges? These are the questions explored in the latest edition of Beyond Fast and Easy Answers, written by NEPSA Director Chresten Heide-Anderson. The article builds on the previous newsletter, which examined a bottle-tracking study