Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for North Sydney for her very important question. She's quite right to identify the scale and importance of this problem of soft plastics and the failure of those opposite to institute real change in recycling, particularly for soft plastics.

The report that she is referring to says that 139 million tonnes of plastics were produced in 2021. What that means in practice for Australia is that, if we keep going the way we're going, the plastic in the oceans will weigh more than the fish in the oceans by 2050. In Australia, the average Australian is ingesting about a credit card worth of microplastics every week through the food they eat and the water they drink.

It is a shame that we've wasted a decade, but we are turning that around. This government has committed to a $250 million investment in upgrading recycling infrastructure with the states, the territories and the private sector, specifically including $60 million for those hard-to-recycle plastics like soft plastics. We know that families around Australia have been doing the right thing. They've been collecting their soft plastic, they've been schlepping it down to the supermarket, and then, instead of it being recycled, it's been sitting in warehouses causing environmental problems.

We've established the Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group, which is chaired by John Thwaites. It includes our Chief Scientist, Engineers Australia, Chemistry Australia and the CSIRO. With the Minister for Industry and Science, we're investing in research grants to support the circular economy. We've joined international efforts to reduce the use of plastics around the world. We've joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. We've signed the new plastics global commitment; we are one of 500 governments and businesses around the world to have signed up.

Of course, those opposite could have done this stuff. In fact, they announced some—

Yes, you announced some very ambitious targets; you did. You announced a very ambitious target four years ago—an ambitious target of 70 per cent recycling of plastic by 2025. Guess where they got to? Sixteen per cent, they got to. Sixteen per cent you've been at for four years, so I wouldn't be interjecting if I were you. I'd be very careful with that one.

Can I say that this is such an exciting area. We have scientists at the University of Technology Sydney working on algae based replacements for plastics. We've got enzyme based recycling at the Australian National University, through Samsara labs. That means almost endless, infinite capacity to recycle plastics.

For every job in taking stuff to landfill and dumping it, there are three jobs in recycling. That's what we're about. (Time expired)

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