President’s column – 14 August 2020

If plastics were radioactive we would pay more attention to their half-lives. Even the CSIRO have set an ambitious new mission to “end plastic waste”. If only it wasn’t such a useful material!

Plastic has transformed everyday life, being
easy to manufacture, durable, strong for its weight, and resistant to shock,
corrosion, chemicals, and water.

However, its utility and low cost has led to a veritable tsunami of plastics in homes and then in our waste streams, much of it packaging and other single-use applications.

According to Wikipedia, a third of all plastic
produced in developed countries is used in packaging!

The diversity of uses is matched by the number of locations it ends up in, including the sea, fish, birds, and soil profiles. Anyone who saw Monday’s Four Corners program “Plastic Wars” would agree we have a problem.

Local governments face two major pressure points
when it comes to sustainable waste management.

On the one hand, the cost of managing waste is
rising rapidly due to the climbing rate of waste being generated, reduced
landfill availability, and increases in state landfill levies.

On the other, community expectations are growing
about how waste is managed. Australians increasingly want their waste to be
managed sustainably and responsibly.

Hence the proliferation of initiatives like
Plastic Free July, Plastic Oceans Australasia, and the Minderoo Foundation’s No
Plastic Waste project.

Awareness-raising and public education are a vital aspect of improved waste management, but buy-in from industry, commercial waste service providers, and all levels of government is more important. So is acting to minimise the production of single-use plastics.

Perhaps transitioning to a circular economy that
pulls waste plastic back into the manufacturing cycle is the most vital plank
of all.

So how are we progressing on these many fronts?

From the local government angle, creditably well. As I related in my presentation at a Plastic Oceans webinar last month, councils, collectively or individually, are active in community education, technological innovation, and procurement policies designed to create a sustainable market for recycle materials.

Councils have played a key role in the success
of container deposit schemes and green sheds. Others have been proactive in
discouraging or banning single-use plastics from outdoor festivals and markets.
More and more are choosing to buy outdoor furniture, bollards and road pavement
products that incorporate recycled plastics.

Local governments
cannot do it alone, however. A whole-of-government approach is needed with
national agreements and coordination of the initiatives adopted.

The National Waste
Action Plan, driven by ALGA and the other two tiers of government, is the most
obvious manifestation of this approach. Crucially, the plan lays the groundwork
for a circular economy in which waste is eliminated as far as possible and what
is not is used more than once.

To get there, ALGA
has strongly advocated to other levels of government the need for strong
product stewardship and ambitious investment in new collection, sorting, and reprocessing infrastructure.

ALGA has also called
for national standards recycled content in roads so more councils can lay new
road pavement products with confidence.

And we are winning. Earlier this month, the Commonwealth said it was creating a new Recycling Modernisation Fund (into which it would invest $190 million) and providing $35 million to implement the National Waste Policy Action Plan. A further $25 million is being invested in improving national waste data.

Both ARRB and Austroads are doing research on new pavement designs, and the NSW EPA has approved a pavement product including recycled plastics for general use.

All very
encouraging, but overall progress can seem frustratingly slow at times, with
setbacks and roadblocks almost routine. Even within our own sector, early
enthusiasm for trials with new road pavement products has been followed by
extreme conservatism in transitioning beyond the trail phase, despite
overwhelming evidence and community support for change.

The plastics and
packaging industries have registered big sales increases during Covid-19 off
the back of higher demand for healthcare and food container products. In the
US, lobbyists have even called for plastic bag bans to be rolled back in the
name of public safety.

If we are to achieve
a sustainable and effective materials waste solution, the No 1 priority now is
for the private sector to step up and commit to product stewardship schemes – through
its own efforts or at the behest of governments.

The Senate’s ongoing inquiry into the Product Stewardship Amendment (Packaging and Plastics) Bill 2019 is one avenue for achieving this outcome, providing it recommends making such scheme mandatory, as ALGA’s submission has urged it to do.

Many companies are
embracing the “polluter pays” principle, others are proving to be laggards.

Market-based
solutions – such as the Minderoo Foundation’s initiative to make fossil-fuel-based
plastics more expensive to produce and thus more valuable to collect – are one
way to alter corporate behaviour.

Another is to apply pressure through shareholder blocs to make it clear that companies producing single-use or difficult-to-recycle plastics will be increasingly held to account by shareholders and broader public scrutiny.

In the meanwhile,
ALGA will continue advocating for greater state, territory and federal spending
on fit-for-purpose sorting and reprocessing plants. Because the problems we
face as a sector can be met with new investment and new markets for recycled
material.

But the clock is winding down for this to be in place before the National Waste Export Ban starts.

David O’Loughlin,
ALGA President