A discussion on the importance of the ANZPAC Plastics Pact in creating a circular economy for plastics was held by a panel of experts who spoke on the work already being done, and what else was needed to achieve the Pact’s ambitious goals.
Panellists included Paul Klymenko from Planet Ark Environmental Foundation, Veolia’s Richard Kirkman, Nestle’s Margaret Stuart, Bridget McBride from New Zealand-based ecostore Company, and Dr Christina Shaw from the Vanuatu Environmental Science Society. The panel was chaired by Meredith Epp from the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation.
The panel opened by examining the ‘why’ of the program, why all the stakeholders had joined forces to participate in the ANZPAC Plastics Pact program?
“Our mission at ecostore is to be the most sustainable home and body store business in the world, and we feel that the Pact’s goals highly align with ours as we are all about eliminating plastic,” says McBride.
“We've already introduced a lot of initiatives, including launching NZ’s first closed-loop plastics return program last year. We source all our plastic from recycled sources. And we also have a hundred refill stations across NZ and two in Australia, and that number continues to grow.
“We still face a lot of challenges though, and we feel that what the Pact can do for us is really develop innovative partnerships so we can work collectively with these challenges, as well as influence consumer behaviour change, and to also influence government to really bring about a change.”
Margaret Stuart added that it was important to realise that making commitments such as having packaging that's recyclable is one thing in Australia, it's a much different thing in other places like New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, where infrastructure and resources varied vastly. She said joining up with the program opened the door to developing different solutions for different geographies and markets.
“What's really obvious is that we can't do this on our own, what we really need is collaboration to work with others who share the same vision that we share for a future without waste, where our packaging waste is not found in the environment,” Stuart said.
“So, we really welcome the creation of the Pact because it gives us a platform through which we can start to think of these problems from different angles, and to engage in a richer, deeper way and solve problems in a way that is locally sympathetic to the infrastructure of that specific region.”
Veolia’s Richard Kirkman commented that Australia is really motivated at the moment to step up and make a difference.
“You know there's a lot of policy coming down the pipe, organisations have been promoting what they want to do, and motivation is the first thing you need if you want to go somewhere,” Kirkman said.
“I think it's just the actions that's now required, and that really requires having difficult conversations to take place over who's going to do what to fix this problem.
“This is why it’s great that the Pact has come along as it brings everybody together to have those difficult conversations and decide who's going to fix it, and how we're going to fix it together, and who's playing what role in this new way of doing things.”
Planet Ark’s Paul Klymenko spoke about his experiences working with the Australian Circular Economy Hub saying that the most important aspect in achieving plastics circularity lies in collaboration from everyone involved.
“Collaboration is necessary, I think that everyone keeps mentioning that word collaboration, but it really is key. That's what this is about what we're doing today is the start of a collaboration to focus on a very, very difficult problem.
“We can't underestimate how hard it is solving the plastics problem, but it was created by a bunch of humans, and it is going to also be solved by a collaboration of humans, and I am very confident that we can achieve that.”
