Page 372 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
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We must consider actions on other kinds of single-use plastic to question whether they remain consistent with our ambition to reduce environmental impacts and drive resource recovery in the ACT towards 90 per cent by 2025. This has been recognised at the national government level through the 2018 national waste policy, which provides a framework for approaching what were once considered waste issues, with a circular economy lens and specifically targeting plastic, packaging and pollution. This national approach empowers us to look at these issues in a different light, looking at not just the environmental impacts of plastic pollution but also ways to extend the useful life of the resources we consume and consider their whole-of-life environmental footprint.
These issues are complex and important enough to have been included in the United Nations sustainable development goals through goal 12, sustainable consumption and production; goal 14, life below water; and goal 15, life on land. The ACT government is committed to reducing the prevalence of single-use plastic where practical and possible, and we are exploring opportunities to champion systemic change through education initiatives and the provision of water fountains across the city, where reusable water bottles can easily be refilled.
Single-use plastics, including, but not limited to, lightweight plastic bags, are an issue of both public and environmental concern. Given our ambition to work towards 90 per cent of our waste being diverted from landfill by 2025, a broader approach to single-use plastic is a logical approach. The ACT is not alone in grappling with these issues. Community concern has deepened around the impact of our traditionally linear economic model of taking resources, making products, using them and then throwing them away.
In particular, the community has a heightened awareness of the global environmental impact of single-use plastics. Many single-use plastic items like plastic cutlery, straws, coffee stirrers and plastic-lined takeaway coffee cups are used for a matter of moments before being discarded, potentially releasing toxins and damaging the environment as they decay.
In many parts of the world, single-use plastics are having destructive impacts on waterways and marine life. Security of our earth’s resources and climate change are also cited as drivers in the efforts to curb single-use plastic consumption, given the petrochemical origin and non-renewable nature of fossil-based plastic production.
There are a number of steps that industry is already taking. I want to highlight the ambition of the packaging industry, led by the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation. APCO, supported by government, has developed some of the world’s most ambitious 2025 national packaging targets.
These targets are, first, 100 per cent of all Australia’s packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 or earlier; second, 70 per cent of Australia’s plastic packaging will be recycled or composted by 2025; third, 30 per cent average recycled content will be included across all packaging by 2025; and, fourth,
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