Monday 9 September 2024

ALL SINGLE USE AVOIDANCE IS WELCOME 
HOWEVER, A NATIONALLY CONSISTENT APPROACH IS REQUIRED

The Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) welcomes the NSW proposal to address problematic plastic waste, as well as the recent phasing out of a range of (yet different) single use plastics in Western Australia and South Australia from 1 September 2024, as positive contributions to waste avoidance.

“These moves are welcome, particularly given increased emphasis in NSW on re-use and design standards, however, a nationally co-ordinated approach to eliminating single use plastics would make it easier for consumers to understand and for businesses to comply. We do welcome the NSW proposals announced today as another step in that direction,” WMRR Chief Executive Officer Gayle Sloan said. 

“It is hoped these proposed reforms from NSW, WA and SA assist in changing behaviour, so we can move to eliminating waste, avoiding single use items and make the shift to reuse options as we need to use much less material and keep it is use for longer.

“NSW is to be congratulated for taking the time to listen to business and industry on how to design better to ensure that we don’t simply replace one product (plastic) with another more harmful one that may contain, for example, PFAS. We know that 80% of a product's environmental impact is influenced by decisions made at the design stage.

“WMRR is concerned the Federal Government committed to releasing the design rules for all packaging in June this year - it is now September, yet we are still waiting. This scheme would improve design across all packaging including its recoverability.

“As the NSW Minister noted, the recovery rate of plastics remains below 20%. The Federal Government's ongoing inability to develop the long-promised introduction of a nationwide mandatory packaging product stewardship scheme is severely hampering these efforts. To make a real dent on plastics, there needs to be a whole of value chain solution to combat the 1.3 million tonnes of plastic packaging being placed on market.

“The Australian Government needs to have the same high ambition for tackling plastics at home as it does globally. Domestic actions to date have tinkered at the edges while eschewing important albeit, hard decisions,” Ms Sloan said.