ENDING PLASTIC POLLUTION BY 2040

 In March last year global concern about plastic pollution saw the formation of an international High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution by 2040. 

The High Ambition Coalition’s three strategic goals are to reduce plastic consumption and production to sustainable levels, to enable a circular economy for plastics that protects the environment and human health and to achieve environmentally sound management and recycling of plastic waste.

As a member of this group, Australia has committed to rapidly increase plastic recycling by 2025.  To meet this goal, as well as dealing with the former government’s ban on waste exports, Environment Minister Plibersek launched a $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund.

So far $118 million of this fund has been spent on building new waste processing facilities or expanding existing ones across 160 projects.  These recycling facilities include 16 dealing with glass, 60 with plastics, four with paper and cardboard, 12 with tyres and 34 with multi-materials.

“From tyre recycling in Alice Springs to plastic recycling in Dandenong, we’re creating new jobs and keeping waste out of landfill,” Plibersek said.

“This is great for the environment, but its also great for the economy.  For every job in landfill, there are three jobs in recycling.  We’re in a recycling jobs boom.”

 In July Plibersek announced that $60 million from the fund would be dedicated to facilities for “hard to recycle” soft plastics including shopping bags, bread bags, cling wrap and chip packets.

Additional recycling funding has come from state and territory governments ($116 million) and from industry ($454 million).

 Along with the funding for recycling are agreements between state and federal ministers about plastic targets for 2025.  These include making packaging 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable; recycling or composting 75 per cent of plastic packaging; using 50 per cent recycled content in packaging and phasing out unnecessary single-use plastics.

 These are all ambitious targets but they are necessary given the plastic pollution overwhelming us and the natural environment.

 It should also mean plans for a grossly polluting waste to energy incinerator at Casino are abandoned.

 

-        Leonie Blain

A GLOBAL BAN FOR SINGLE USE PLASTICS

Single-use plastics are increasingly being seen as a major problem.  Over the years Australia has done very poorly in disposing of used plastic with various failed exporting programs and limited local recycling programs.  The continuing problem has recently been highlighted by the collapse of REDcycle, the company contracted to around 2000 supermarkets to collect soft plastic returned by consumers for recycling.

Filmmaker Craig Leeson, who attended COP27 in Egypt where plastic pollution was discussed, left there wondering if humanity could address this problem.  In a recent article in “The Saturday Paper” he pointed out that humans are still manufacturing and throwing away more single-use plastics than ever before because of convenience, habit and a lack of government regulation.

Leeson said, “We have been sold the lie that we can keep using plastics as long as we consumers recycle them.  But recycling doesn’t work.  It never did and wasn’t designed to. It’s a con.”  We have been conned by big companies and governments.

Currently more than 12% of oil goes towards making plastics and over the next 20 years the oil industry is planning to build more plastic production plants globally. According to Carbon Tracker, BP expects plastics to represent 95% of the net growth in demand for oil from 2020 to 2040.

Leeson says the obvious solution is a global ban on single use plastics.  Some bans on specific items have been introduced in Australia and elsewhere by governments and by organisations in their operations.   Importantly, there is considerable community support for a global ban.  However, any ban will be strongly opposed and likely undermined by the plastic-producing companies.  These are the same companies who have extensive experience in cozying up to politicians and publicly undermining action on climate change.

Urgent change is needed to stop further pollution of our oceans and land and the growth of microplastics in our food chains which is having a growing impact on the health of humans and other life forms.  And then there’s the problem of cleaning up the existing mess.

-        Leonie Blain

Published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Clarence Valley Independent , February 22nd,  2023.