Recycling

To turn ambitious recycling targets into lasting circular economy results, Australia’s recycling success should depend more on regulation and government leadership and less on consumers and corporate goodwill.

The burning issue isn’t how much plastic we make or use – it’s how much escapes into the environment. Global efforts such as the UN Plastics Treaty should prioritise building and funding effective containment systems to stop plastic leaking into nature. Actions to reduce plastic production should follow suit.

We should remove taxes on things we want and instead put them on things we don’t want. Tax the things we want less of and remove taxes on things we want more of. This should apply to products, services and... waste.

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Almost two years on from a landmark pledge by state and federal environment ministers to take decisive action on packaging waste, Australia is still waiting for meaningful reform.

Single use plastic makes our modern lives easier and often safer. But all too often, it becomes litter.

Waste in Australia (total generation and per capita) continues to grow, driving up GHG emissions and exhausting landfill space. To decouple waste generation from economic growth, Circular Economy is the key.

Waste management in the Pacific often gets neglected in favour of other issues. Donor countries can change that.

Recycling won’t save the earth, but it does make a significant contribution.

Packaging recycling in Australia has some way to go. Both in terms of meeting the national 2025 Waste Targets and in terms of reducing the use of dangerous chemicals and composite materials that pollute and hinder recycling. Government intervention was supposed to help. This has not happened yet.