During his seminar session at this year’s AWRE in Sydney, Peter Brisbane, government partnership manager at the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), provided a perspective on the major processes underway in packaging product stewardship.
According to Brisbane, packaging product stewardship has come a long way in the past five years, with the establishment of the 2025 National Packaging Targets, a near-tripling of the number of companies participating with APCO, and the rise of programs such as REDcycle and the Australian Recycling Label (ARL).
At the same time, he said, governments have supported the shift to a more circular approach to packaging by investing in recycling infrastructure, supporting the development of new product stewardship schemes, and implementing policy interventions such as single-use plastic bans.
But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing to get to where the country currently is, he said.
“One of the challenges of packaging product stewardship is that there are so many different people involved in making decisions, and carrying out those decisions impact the value chain and and packaging waste value chain,” Brisbane explained.
“So, our responsibility, our obligation, and our challenge is to work with all of those other stakeholders as well, to start assisting them to inform us and our members what they need to know about how packaging waste is dealt with.”
Brisbane went on to explain to the crowd in attendance how both the successes and frustrations in driving system change over the past five years can help inform the future in this space.
He stressed that we are now at a critical point in determining the direction of packaging product stewardship, and its role in driving the systemic changes needed to deliver a circular economy for packaging in Australia.
“It’s fantastic if you can stick stuff into the recycling bin and it processed through the system, but if the material that comes out at the end is not the right standards and specifications, then it can’t be sold back to the market,” said Brisbane.
“So, providing those standards is really important and working with government and industry to deliver on this and to invest in the right technologies is key to achieving our targets.”
A review of the national co-regulatory arrangement for packaging has delivered nine key recommendations, and a review of the National Packaging Targets is due for completion by the end of this year.
