A new report, commissioned by WWF-Australia, found that phasing out most types of disposable plastic foodware and containers – in addition to cigarette filters and microbeads – would help halve Australia's plastics pollution.
Plastic Revolution to Reality, prepared by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), presents what WWF said is the first comprehensive set of recommendations for addressing the six most problematic types of single-use plastic, including plastic bottles; soft plastics; disposable foodware; disposable packaging and containers; cigarettes; and microplastics.
Analysing data from clean-up activities, BCG found these types of plastic make up most litter collected from the environment and pose the greatest threat to Australia’s oceans and waterways.
BCG managing director and partner Wendy Mackay said these six types of plastic account for 70 per cent of single-use plastics consumption in Australia and make up 75,000 tonnes of the 130,000 tonnes of plastic entering the environment each year.
“This equates to around 600 million plastic bottles, 7.14 billion pieces of soft plastics... leaking to the environment each year,” Mackay said.
The report proposes three actions for Australia’s federal, state and territory governments to take to reduce consumption of these six plastics and prevent their leakage into nature:
- develop a roadmap to phase out cigarette filters; microbeads; and most types of disposable plastic foodware, packaging and containers;
- enact regulation to manage single-use plastics that can’t be phased-out through product standards (e.g. designing for recyclability) and measures to improve collection (e.g. container deposit schemes); and
- incentivise development and adoption of sustainable alternatives and systems to assist the transition away from single-use plastics.
The report said these actions could reduce Australia’s consumption of the six problematic types of plastics by one quarter. The actions could also more than double the rate of recovery for recycling and more than halve the leakage of plastic into the environment.
WWF-Australia no plastics in nature policy manager Katinka Day said industries and individuals cannot solve the planet’s plastic problem alone.
“We have the opportunity to halve the amount of plastic pollution flowing into nature right now, but we need our governments to take the lead,” she said.
The report shows that moving away from problematic plastics is possible, highlighting innovative examples of businesses and other countries leading the way.
These examples include the Loop circular shopping system where groceries are sold in reusable and refillable containers [coming to Australia via Woolworths in the near future], a startup called Evoware that uses seaweed as an alternative to plastic packaging, and Simply Cups who have teamed up with 7-Eleven Australia to collect plastic coffee cups and process them into new recycled products.
“These success stories show we have the solutions to beat plastic pollution,” Day said.
“Australian businesses are trying to tackle the problem, but the fragmented regulatory landscape makes it difficult and expensive and also stifles innovation. If our governments adopt the recommendations of this report, they will save costs for businesses, encourage innovation and stop 44,000 tonnes of plastic from pouring into our environment each year.”
