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

I thank the member for Fremantle for his fantastic question. He is an absolutely committed environmentalist and a very keen recycler as well, I have noticed. Over the weekend, I was at the second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, and it was terrific to be there with other nations, particularly those sharing our high ambition to end plastic pollution by 2040 globally.

Plastic production, of course, is a strong contributor to greenhouse gas pollution. The pollution itself is bad for the environment, and of course it's also bad for human health. And it's a global problem. Pacific nations account for only about 1.3 per cent of plastics use, but there is a floating island of plastic garbage in the Pacific that is about three times the size of France, as the currents wash the rubbish into the ocean. If we don't take action now, the amount of plastic entering the ocean will triple by 2030; and, on one estimate, by 2050 the plastic in the ocean will outweigh fish in the ocean. So, as well as arguing on our own behalf, we were there emphasising the voice of Pacific nations that are very strongly committed to action on plastic pollution.

Humans have produced about 8½ billion tonnes of plastic, and about nine per cent of that has been recycled over the years. The rest has been burned, it has gone into landfill or it has escaped into the environment, where it lasts for thousands of years—sometimes into the oceans, filling up the gullets of seabirds, choking animals and starving them or drowning them. But it also has impacts on human health. We're seeing microplastics and the chemicals from plastics turning up in the human bloodstream, in organs, in breast milk and in the placenta. In fact, the average Australian ingests about a credit card's worth of plastic a week.

Under the previous government, Australia made an admirable commitment to recycle 70 per cent of our plastic packaging, but we have been stuck at 16 per cent for four years. We have to do better. That's why we're investing in recycling infrastructure. We will almost double our recycling capacity by 2020. We're reforming the regulation of packaging by 2025, with the states and territories. We're backing the CSIRO's program to end plastic waste and we're working with the Chief Scientist on circularity. We're seeing the CEFC and the National Reconstruction Fund investing in recycling and remanufacturing. We're stepping up to get supermarkets to deal with the problem of soft plastics that has so troubled Australians. We're regulating the recycling of solar panels and electronic goods as well. (Time expired)

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