Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) the Australian community is justifiably dismayed at the collapse of REDcycle's return-to-store soft plastics recovery program, with reports that over 12,400 tonnes of plastics were found in warehouses in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, a quantity of which has degraded to an extent that it is not suitable for reprocessing and will end up in landfill;

(b) a statement made by the former Government Minister for the Environment in 2020, who said Australians want to be 'confident that when they put things in their recycling bin, or deliver them to a collection centre, they will be repurposed effectively, and not dumped in landfill or simply sent overseas';

(c) the Australian community's concern about the significant harm caused by plastics pollution to marine life, including by the proliferation of microplastics;

(d) that only 16 per cent of plastic packaging was recycled or composted in Australia in 2019-20 whereas the 2018 National Packaging Target is for 70 per cent of plastic packaging to be recycled or composted by 2025; and

(e) that plastic packaging only contains 3 per cent recycled content, whereas the National Packaging Target is for plastics to contain 20 per cent average recycled content by 2025; and

(2) acknowledges the Government's commitment to addressing the woeful state of plastic recycling through:

(a) an agreement with state and territory environment ministers to reform the regulation of plastic packaging by 2025;

(b) the provision of $60 million in the October 2022 budget for state-of-the-art advanced recycling solutions for hard-to-recycle plastics, as part of the $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund;

(c) the creation of the Soft Plastics Taskforce which is now taking steps to reinstate plastics collection systems;

(d) the establishment of a national taskforce on the circular economy to reduce waste and pollution, improve product design, and transition to a more circular economy; and

(e) timely membership of the High Ambition Coalition for an international treaty to end plastic pollution by 2040 and signing the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.

The world has a very serious plastic problem. We make and consume too much of it, especially in the form of flimsy disposable crap that is unnecessary and ends up causing serious harm to the environment. Two weeks ago the ABC ran a story as follows:

A previously unknown disease in seabirds caused by the ingestion of plastic has been found on Lord Howe Island by scientists from the United Kingdom and Australia.

Named plasticosis, the newly classified disease is caused by plastic that repeatedly injures soft tissue and leads to the formation of extensive scar tissue in a bird's stomach.

One of the researchers, Ms Charlton-Howard, noted that there are over a thousand marine species known to ingest plastic. How awful is that?

Everyday Australians have shown again and again their dismay in relation to plastic waste and their preparedness to support the change that is required. It is not principally individuals and households that need to fix this problem; it is companies and it is government. Unfortunately, we haven't made great progress on that front. In aggregate terms, our consumption of plastic hasn't greatly reduced and our recycling and reuse of plastic hasn't greatly improved. Yes, we have made some welcome progress in relation to single-use plastic, and we should celebrate that. We should remember that when people claim it's impossible to shift away from this or that form of plastic, the same thing was said about eliminating plastic cutlery, straws, cups and so on. But in terms of the big picture, there hasn't been much change,.

The REDcycle debacle is a reminder of how we need to be absolutely rigorous in demanding that change occur, that we measure it, and that we hold those responsible to account. I don't understand how that scheme ran for years without anyone knowing that the collection of soft plastics for recycling was not resulting in any actual recycling. The Woolworths 2022 sustainability report says:

In F22 REDcycle recycled 4,608 tonnes of plastic through Woolworths Supermarkets across Australia, a 58% growth on previous year.

The Coles 2022 sustainability report says:

Since the REDcycle program began, more than 2.4 billion pieces (9,675 tonnes) of flexible plastic have been returned to our supermarkets across Australia. The soft plastic is converted into a range of products including playground furniture, supermarket trolleys, fence posts and as a base for roads.

But in reality, since 2018 more than 12,000 tonnes of soft plastic has been stockpiled. It hadn't been converted into anything other than warehouses full of plastic that presented a fire risk.

The former coalition government lauded the REDcycle program at every opportunity, including at their much vaunted Plastics Summit in 2020. Like so many of their supported initiatives, there wasn't much substance; just lots of packaging. As far as I'm concerned, there are still serious questions to answer in relation to how the supermarkets and the former government remained in the dark about what can only be described as an abject failure. Australians diligently collected and dropped off their soft plastics and they were told it was being recycled. At the same time, the coalition spent millions of taxpayer dollars running ads to that effect. But in reality, for years the REDcycle arrangement was a charade.

The environment minister, the member for Sydney, has been resolute about these matters and about the scale of the challenge. Under the minister's leadership, this government has allocated $60 million to tackle hard-to-recycle materials like soft plastic, and we have established a national task force on the circular economy. The minister has rightly said that in the face of failed voluntary schemes with respect to product stewardship, there will come a time when co-regulatory or mandatory schemes with proper reporting and compliance will need to be applied.

We've seen the Australian Packaging Covenant drift along without delivering any meaningful change in key areas like the use of recycled plastic and new packaging. The 2025 APCO target is to achieve a relatively modest 20 per cent of recycled plastic in new packaging by that date. Yet the current level has been stuck at two to three per cent for years. One of the many reports the previous government kept stonily silent about was the consultant review at the end of 2021 that made it patently clear that the APCO targets were badly off track and would not be met.

We want to make serious progress towards a circular economy, which we must achieve if we want to stop the scourge of ocean plastic and ensure our sustainable use of limited resources. To do this we need effective market design, effective regulation and serious corporate social responsibility. Australia has been crystal clear about what they expect and they've shown and keep showing their preparedness to take action and make choices in the name of avoiding waste, stopping environmental damage like plasticosis and building a sustainable, resilient circular economy. The Albanese Labor government is not going to shirk our responsibly on that front.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fremantle for this important motion. Soft plastic recycling is a significant issue in Australia, as traditional recycling methods do not work on these materials and they can take hundreds of years to break down in landfill, causing serious environmental harm. Australia currently consumes more single-use plastic waste per person than any other country in the world after only Singapore. That is something that I think Australians just don't realise. Despite awareness, we are not good worldwide citizens on plastics.

Consumption of plastic is rising, and we recover less than 15 per cent of the plastic used in our country. Plastic pollution is the single biggest threat to marine biodiversity. That said, until the collapse of REDcycle, Woolworths had seen an increase in soft plastic returns, growing at some 70 per cent per year. So, there was a willingness but really not an awareness of how badly we were doing. Individuals were starting to do their bit, but only 16 per cent of plastic packaging was recycled or composted in Australia between 2019 and 2020. The national packaging target is for 70 per cent of plastic packaging to be recycled or composted by 2025, but we are way off that target, and it shows that a voluntary system is simply not working.

Ninety-nine per cent of plastic is made by using fossil fuels, like fracked gas and oil, and it is dangerous to people and the environment throughout its entire life cycle. REDcycle was a well-known soft plastic recycling initiative in Australia but then declared bankruptcy, catching all unaware and leaving a huge gap in this circular system. A new soft plastics task force has been established to develop a new approach to soft plastic recycling in Australia with some urgency. I recently met with representatives from Woolworths and was heartened in relation to their commitment to solving this issue and stepping into the gap that has been left by REDcycle. The task force is a collaboration of leading brands, government bodies and industry groups aiming to create a more sustainable future for soft plastics in Australia. It's quite frightening to think about the extent to which all these players were simply in the dark as to how badly REDcycle was operating.

The soft plastics task force will focus on education, innovation and collaboration to address the challenges of soft plastic recycling. It aims to develop new recycling technologies and solutions, such as using soft plastics in road infrastructure and other construction projects. The aim is to introduce in-store collection pilot programs and kerbside collection programs. But we need to recognise that government needs to have a priority when it comes to its procurement—that in fact we are prioritising the use of recycled plastics. We know the task force is severely constrained, but it shows lack of access to soft plastic recycling, which can process the mixed polymer soft plastics that they aim to collect.

Currently it's impossible to recycle the volume of household soft plastics collected in the proposed programs by using the current infrastructure. However, over the next year the task force plans to align their collection program with projected opening of new recycling operators and expansion of existing processors. The task force also aims to raise awareness about the importance of soft plastic recycling and the devastating impacts of single-use plastics on our environment. There are some solutions but they require political will. Soft plastic recycling reduces waste, conserves natural resources and prevents pollution. Consumers want to know that the plastics they put in recycling bins and at collection sites is actually being recycled to ensure this continued investment and expansion of the recycling industry remains paramount. We need to ensure the circular economy works, where waste is designed out, materials are kept in the economy for as long as possible, and where residual waste is reduced and safely managed in a safe and sustainable alternative to the constant reintroduction of virgin plastics we see in Australia. That is why I strongly support that we introduce an import tax when it comes to any manufacturing or selling of any virgin plastics. We need to get away from new plastics constantly coming into the system. As I said, government procurement contracts must mandate a proportion of recycled content; that would be a large lever. We have to create that market for recycled contents. And product stewardship schemes can be imposed to increase the responsibility of businesses for the waste they produce.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After a decade of neglect on recycling, making progress towards a circular economy is back as a priority for this federal government. The reality is we have a plastics problem in Australia. We produce too much and we don't reuse what we already have. If we don't act, we face a future where plastic will outweigh fish in our oceans by the year 2050. If we don't act, we will see more videos of dead turtles and dead sea that having their stomachs cut open to reveal a rainbow of micro plastics—animals that have either starved to death or choked on plastic. If we don't act, we will continue to see the average Australian ingest a credit card's worth of micro plastics each week. It is for horrific reasons like these that the people of my electorate want to reduce waste and use fewer disposable items in the first place. But we have to set up our economy to help them to do so.

It is time to get serious about reducing waste and that's why I am seconding the motion by the member for Fremantle. I thank him for bringing this important issue to the chamber. The motion outlines what the Albanese government is doing to address the woeful state of soft plastic recycling after a decade of inaction by the former coalition government. The cornerstone of the Albanese government's commitment to the circular economy is the $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund. This will be underpinned by an agreement with state and territory environment ministers to reform the regulation of plastic packaging by 2025. We are also establishing a national task force on the circular economy to reduce waste and pollution, to improve product design and to transition to a true eco-friendly economy.

These reforms build on the $60 million of funding in last year's budget, which will be a catalyst for state-of-the-art advanced recycling solutions. These actions reflect our commitment to make up for the past decade of inaction and to take action to resolve problems created by the collapse of REDCycle. This includes bringing the supermarkets together and creating a task force, which has made strong progress already. Woolies and Coles announced they will take responsibility for the thousands of tonnes of soft plastics stockpiled in warehouses across the country. Earlier this month the task force released a roadmap with a path forward to resume soft plastics collection. The task force also announced that Woolies and Coles will start collecting soft plastics in select stores by the end of the year and expand in 2024 as more recycling infrastructure is available in Australia.

We are committed to helping the supermarkets resume collection of soft plastics and we welcome announcements that the supermarkets remain committed to this. These acknowledge the frustrations of people across the nation who recycle, who are responsible but who are now questioning the commitment. We must establish Australia as a global leader in this space as we move forward. That's why last November we joined our international partners in the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution by 2040. We signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, fulfilling the promise of the Minister for the Environment and Water at the UN Oceans Conference that Australia would sign up too by the end of last year.

These commitments are all part of this government's ambition to re-establish a circular economy. We are supported in these efforts by many in our regions. With rapid population growth, five of my local G21 municipalities are looking to build a $15 million regional waste resource recovery and re-use hub, which would be a 250-million-tonne facility. This would establish the foundations for a circular economy in my electorate, stabilising costs and, importantly, reducing landfill. From the federal to the local level of government, this nation is showing a commitment to reviving the circular economy and nurturing a sustainable region.

I'll conclude by quoting the Minister for the Environment and Water, who has said that she wants to see a plastic-free Pacific within our lifetime. With the Albanese government's actions in this space, we are well on the way. And we don't have a choice. We must do so if we are going to sustain our planet and the lives of all people who live on it.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion of the member for Fremantle regarding the need for us to take immediate and effective action to improve the handling of soft plastics in this country. We produce a lot of plastic waste. Unfortunately, we live at a time when using virgin plastic is still cheaper than recycling the plastic that's already in circulation. In 2019-2020 only 16 per cent of our plastic packaging was recycled or composted in Australia. We have a national packaging target of recycling or composting 70 per cent of plastic packaging by 2025, but it's hard to see how we could possibly achieve that. Our waste collection and resource recovery industry is very fragmented. Legislative requirements vary from state to territory.

In Victoria we've had multiple extremely unfortunate incidents recently in which tens of thousands of tonnes of recyclables have ended up in landfill and then have often been incinerated in industrial fires. At a national level there are far too few financial incentives for manufacturers to use recycled materials and we lack the technology and the infrastructure necessary to turn large volumes of plastic into other useful things. We have been far too slow in creating a circular economy. More recently, we were told that more than 12,400 tonnes of plastics were found in warehouses in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, much of which had already degraded to the extent that it was not suitable for reprocessing and will have to end up in landfill. While the government allotted $60 million in the October 2022 budget for advanced solutions for hard-to-recycle plastics as part of the $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund, at this point we have no local facilities available to deal with soft plastic at this scale.

Many constituents from Kooyong have contacted me to express their distress about the recent collapse of REDcycle's soft plastics recovery program. Emily from Hawthorn East told me that her 'conscientious household' was saddened by the failure of the REDcycle initiative. Miriam from Surry Hills believes that the undermining of 'community trust' is one of the biggest issues in this matter. John from Camberwell noted that the various government levels had thrown this issue around like a hot potato. Janet asked why we can't just ban plastic bags from supermarkets. Meg from Hawthorn East said: 'This feels a little like the straw that's going to break my back.'

It is important to acknowledge that, as tragic as it was, the collapse of the REDcycle program was only a small part of a massive problem. Before its collapse, REDcycle was collecting less than one per cent of the 449,000 tonnes of soft plastic used by Australians every year. We have to use less plastic. We also need the ability to recycle mixed polymer soft plastics domestically. We need to be confident that, when we put plastic in a recycling bin or when we deliver it to a collection centre, it will be repurposed effectively, not dumped in landfill or sent overseas. This government has committed to addressing the woeful state of plastic recycling through combined efforts by state and territory environment ministers to reform the regulation of plastic packing by 2025 and migration of the softs plastics workforce. Last year Australia signed on to the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. In the last week the Albanese government has indicated that it will grant exemptions to allow Coles, Woolworths and Aldi to send our soft plastics offshore.

None of this is enough. To end plastic pollution on our land and in our seas we have to decrease our consumption and our production of plastics to sustainable levels. We have to make recycling targets mandatory. We need a national kerbside collection of soft plastic, as has been proposed by the Victorian government, that is mandatory. We have to enable a circular economy for plastics in which plastic products are either recycled, reused or remanufactured. A mature country takes responsibility for all of its actions with ambition and with integrity. That's what we need to do.

Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Fremantle for moving the motion. Our water is our most precious resource. Water gives life. It nurtures life. None of us can live without water. We are particularly lucky to have the best beaches in the world, but there is a very real threat facing our oceans, rivers, estuaries, creeks and streams in our beautiful country. Plastic is polluting our precious water. This is a problem all over the world.

Most of you know that I was a dolphin trainer many years ago. I had four dolphins that I took care of. My favourite dolphin's name was Ting Loy. He was a cheeky boy and very playful. We had a very strong connection. Whenever I got into the pool or water he would swim fast to me and always wanted to play with me. He had such an energy and always made me smile. But one day when I got into water he didn't swim up to me. Instead, he was lying at the bottom of the pool not moving. We had a vet see him and the vet had to cut open his tummy. There were a lot of plastic bags in his tummy—so much plastic, full of it. I lost my good friend. Do you know how his tummy was full of plastics? The pool was on the slope of a hill where there was a road and people used to drive past, stop and throw bags of fish into the pool. My dolphins would eat the fish but eat the plastic bags too. Even now when I talk about it I get sad and angry—angry at the people who throw their rubbish to create a problem for someone or something else, angry at people who choke our precious environment or wildlife with disregard and a lack of care. This was 40 years ago. Imagine how much more plastic has been polluting since then.

Microplastics permeate our environment. They leach into our water, our food. The average Australian ingests a credit card worth of microplastic every week. If we fail to act there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight by 2050. If we fail to act our marine life, our wildlife, our food system, our environment and we as a species are sure to suffer.

Tragically there has been very little action on recycling and plastic for a decade. Australians know this. Australians are aware and want to act. The modern world requires fresh, modern solutions. Our government understands this. At home we are rolling out the $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund. This will expand Australia's capacity to sort, process and remanufacture glass, plastic, tyres, paper and cardboard. We are also investing $60 million to support new recycling infrastructure for hard to recycle plastics, including soft plastics. Three billion dollars has been set aside in the National Reconstruction Fund for clean energy, green matters, waste reduction and remanufacturing.

On the global stage, Australia has also joined the High Ambition Coalition for an international treaty to end plastic pollution by 2040. Australia has also committed to work towards a common vision for a circular economy for plastic by signing the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. Kids within my electorate often talk to me about the environment. They raise concerns about what the future might look like, and they fear that we have not done enough in the past. To these kids, I say: don't lose hope. There is always good work to be done. Get involved. I warmly encourage you to join your local community action group. One such group in my electorate is the Bottle Top Hill Project, a community sustainability program. Bottle Top Hill also uses the spirit of a circular economy to guide their activities and focus throughout the 12 months of the year. There is good work to be done, both at home and in the government. Let's get on with it for our planet, for our kids and for our future.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was only the other weekend that I was sitting on Bondi Beach on a towel with my son and, in just a few minutes, picked up a handful of small pieces of plastic. There were bits of old bottles, a bit of a used shopping bag and a used cigarette butt, among many. Where once you could only find sand and rocks, now you frequently find plastic waste. Unfortunately, this is a familiar story for people up and down the coast. Australians consume more single-use plastic per person than any country in the world , except Singapore. I find that a completely shocking statistic. Every year, despite millions of households making their best efforts to recycle, around 145,000 square metric tonnes of this plastic leaks into our environment. This is causing a tidal wave of plastic pollution, and the damage to our natural environment is severe.

Our approach to dealing with this plastic is wholly inadequate. Our national packaging targets, which are so important for reducing the production of plastic in the first place, are not binding. As a result, they are simply not working. Under the voluntary scheme, Australian plastic consumption has increased while recovery rates have stagnated. There has been much positive talk about improving recycling but a complete lack of action. The most recent data available shows that only 16 per cent of plastic packaging is recycled or composted, some way off the target of 70 per cent by 2025. Producers must be compelled to do more. We also have a National Plastics Plan, which has only been implemented in an ad hoc manner, and a patchwork quilt of measures across different states and territories which are inconsistent and inadequate. We don't even have a common regulatory definition of the term 'plastic'. Even when we think we have clarity on what to do with our plastic waste, the REDcycle affair shows that we lack the private sector capacity for a truly circular economy. REDcycle was supposed to collect and reprocess only a small fraction of the total soft plastic waste generated in Australia, but that scheme was unable to do even that. it shows that the market for recycling plastic is weak and that far too much waste is being generated in the first place.

This is an issue that really concerns my community, so last week I spoke at the Ocean Plastic Forum in Bondi Beach, an event for scientists, businesses, activists, industry and the community. There were incredible businesses and communities represented in that group, including Samsara and ULUU. Samsara is a business which was born of research done at ANU and CSIRO. They are developing enzymes that attack complex plastics and revert them to original building blocks to make virgin plastic. This is world-beating technology coming out of Australia. Similarly, ULUU creates a natural polymer using saltwater microbes that can effectively be used like a plastic. These companies are leading the world, but both of them are saying that poor government policy is hobbling the adoption of this world-leading technology. The message they had for government was loud and clear: enough is enough; the time for decisive action is now. We need to move past a focus on incremental improvements to anaemic recycle rates and adopt a true circular economy ambition. There must be a shift in mindset, and it must be a shift in gears.

There are four key elements that the community is asking for. First, we need mandatory packaging targets for the industry that create much stronger incentives for much more ambitious action, so that businesses like Samsara and ULUU can really thrive and bring to bear this world-beating technology. Second, we need to get on with implementing existing initiatives, starting with nearly 40 action areas identified in the 2021 National Plastics Plan, few of which have seen any meaningful progress. Third, we need federal leadership to strengthen, coordinate and harmonise efforts across the states and territories so that we have a consolidated and consistent approach across the country. That will make it easier for businesses to do the right thing, if our country can get together and be clear on what those standards are. Fourth, we need to empower our communities and our businesses and support local action. That plastic forum I went to last week was such an inspiring indication of the community support for action, and the innovation coming out of our communities and our businesses to tackle this incredibly important issue. These organisations are working on the front line and are often best placed to support the development of meaningful solutions.

The community backs strong action on plastic waste. Now is the time for government to listen. Let's purge plastic pollution for good.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Plastic waste is a major environmental issue affecting our oceans and marine life, and it's filling our landfill. Every year millions of tonnes of plastic waste ends up in our oceans, polluting our waters and harming our marine ecosystem. It's estimated that in Australia alone we produce more than 2½ million tonnes of plastic waste each year, much of which ends up in our waterways. After a decade of neglect in plastics recycling and management by the former government, the new government is making progress towards a circular economy and reducing plastic pollution. The environment is back, and the circular economy is on the agenda. The former government had years to fix this issue, and they simply failed to do so. It has been over 1,600 days since they first announced their plastics reduction target, with the result being next to nothing. Am I surprised? Not really, but should we be angry about it? Yeah, we should. But what else do we expect from a government that couldn't deliver one energy policy?

To add some context, the coalition promised the electorate over 1,600 days ago that we'd have 70 per cent recyclable packaging by 2025—great target, but they stayed at 16 per cent for four years, which is not so great. I know the collapse of REDcycle and the supermarket soft plastic recycling system was devastating to Australians across the country and of course to those in my electorate of Bennelong. Many members of my community in Bennelong reached out to me to express their concerns about the program and to request the support of government to take action on soft plastic waste. We have a community in Bennelong that is committed to the war on waste, and that's what made this collapse so devastating. Like many who have written to me, I simply cannot bring myself to throw these soft plastics out into landfill. I've got about 10 bags collecting in my garage, just waiting for these schemes to start up again.

So, thank goodness—not only for the sake of my garage space but also for the sake of the planet—that the Minister for the Environment has stepped in. The major supermarkets have now agreed to take responsibility for the thousands of tonnes of soft plastic that sit stockpiled in warehouses nationwide. Woolies and Coles will start collecting soft plastics in select stores by the end of year and all stores by 2024. Importantly, the government will invest in more recycling infrastructure in Australia. We're rolling out investments that the former government just didn't make. We've budgeted for a $250 million recycling modernisation fund and a $60 million fund to support new recycling infrastructure. We've also led the charge on reforming plastic packaging. That means ensuring that all packaging in Australia will be reused, recycled and reprocessed. We know that the minister has also put plastic producers on notice. If producers don't use recycled plastic, we'll force them to. We know that it is not only the consumers that need to change their habits on plastic use; the producers themselves also need to change. Product manufacturers must use recycled plastic in their products and the minister has put the industry on notice. The message is clear: stop using new plastic and use recycled plastic. We can no longer afford to be complacent about this issue. The time for action is now and we must act decisively to protect our environment and our future.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fremantle for his contribution to the discussion on the current state of the recycling industry in Australia and particularly around plastics and soft plastics. As co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Waste and Recycling, I have a particular interest in this policy area which stems from my time as mayor at the George Town Council, where I saw firsthand the challenges and opportunities presented by waste and recycling.

Like the member for Fremantle and I think most Australians, I was deeply disappointed by the collapse of our country's largest soft plastics program, REDCycle, last year after it was revealed that soft plastics collected at local Woolworths and Coles across the country were being stockpiled in warehouses. Although I understand that the issues around soft plastics recycling are complex, like many Australians I had a genuine belief that the soft plastics I was dropping off were being recycled, and it made me feel as though I was playing a small part in addressing the problem.

The demise of REDCycle has led to more than 5,700 tonnes of soft plastics being sent to landfill, which is estimated to be enough stockpile to fill about 3½ Olympic-sized swimming pools. Unlike hard plastics, which we can dispose of in our regular council recycling bins to be sent to a recycling facility, soft plastics are incredibly difficult to recycle and once they hit landfill can take up to a thousand years to degrade, which is a very difficult fact to swallow. It is a stark reminder that while recycling is a positive thing we should seek to reduce our use first.

There is movement in this area, and I do welcome that the government is continuing to invest in the Recycling Modernisation Fund, which the coalition first launched in 2020. Under the first round of funding a partnership between the Tasmanian Liberal government and the coalition delivered more than $9½ million in funding, allocated to improve our state's waste processing facilities. One recipient in my electorate, Timberlink, received $5.8 million to make a wood-plastic composite decking product to meet the huge demand in the ever-growing home upgrade market. Timberlink is using milk bottles, collected from across the state, mixed with sawmill waste to form the core of their products, resulting in the use of an extra 13,000 tonnes of high-density polyethylene plastic a year. A recent round, focusing on soft plastics, closed for applications last month and I'm looking forward to seeing the projects that will be supported by the fund and the positive impact that this will have on the state's efforts to address the challenges of recycling soft plastics.

I'd also like to commend the government for the new container refund scheme known as Recycle Rewards, which is due to get off the ground later this year. Under the scheme, people will receive a 10c refund for returning eligible drink containers to designated refund points around the state, with opportunities to donate their refund to the charity or community group of their choice. This is a great initiative that will reduce litter and increase recycling as a whole and also support development of the circular economy.

It's not just local governments or big companies who are playing a role in our state to reduce waste. We know that more can be done to encourage us as consumers to think about how we can reduce our own use and reliance on everyday plastics. One young student in my electorate, Maddie Hassell, has come up with an innovative way to tackle a common soft plastics issue. Last year Scotch Oakburn student Maddie, now in year 9, launched her reusable dry-cleaning environment bag, known as DEBS, after noticing how much plastic went to waste in dry-cleaning. She said, 'I'm always looking out for the environment, and thinking about creative ways we can do things to improve our community has been with me for a long time.'

We know that effectively addressing waste on a large scale will require a combined effort of the right infrastructure, by bringing the biggest contributors of plastic waste to rethink their packaging and by encouraging the everyday consumer to reduce their reliance on plastics, which will be more successful with viable alternatives. I note the government steps in tackling these issues, particularly through the establishment of a national task force to reduce waste and pollution, improve product design and transition to a more circular economy. This is a positive step which will build on the pathway paved by the coalition's own 2020 landmark legislation, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill, which included $190 million for the Recycling Modernisation Fund and put waste on the national agenda for the first time.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting. Before I call the Clerk, I advise members that the clock is not working. For the benefit of all members, I will give you a 30-second warning before your five minutes comes to an end.