PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2018

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 05/18 www.petpla.net 20 are better at source separation. Soft plastics are only recycled in small quantities in Australia. Polystyrene use is rampant, even in food packag- ing. China just stopped accepting Aus- tralian co-mingled recyclates, which caused a ‘recycling crisis’ in Victoria, where councils are telling people to ‘not recycle so much’. They don’t have anywhere to put those materials and might have to dump it in landll. I can’t imagine that would happen in Ger- many. On the more positive side, there is a massive grassroots movement underway to refuse-reduce-reuse. Australians are out there, cleaning up, opening repair cafés, going plastic-free in July, adopting a zero-waste life- style, restaurants are replacing plastic straws, and so on. I cannot keep up with all the Plasticwise, War-on-waste and Boomerang Bag groups popping up everywhere – all run by volunteers. I don’t know if that is happening at this scale in Europe; maybe European gov- ernments are doing more to reduce the impacts of plastics? PETplanet: With what difculties is the topic of plastics and plastics recycling associated in Australia, e. g. in terms of the sovereignty of the individual Australian states, for example? Annett Finger: What gets accepted for recycling, what goes into landll and what attracts a refund differs not only between states, but between councils. It is utterly confus- ing and frustrating. My own council, the City of Yarra, is probably one of the best in the country, they have a depot where you can drop off all sorts of materials for recycling: soft plastics, polystyrene, old X-rays, oppy disks, electronic goods, books, batteries and so much more. But still, the waste bins in my apartment block, just 200m from that depot, are lled with those materials. Next year, all the states other than Tasmania and Victoria will have a 10 cents refund scheme for containers. But there are differences in the way they are managed in each state. How much easier and cheaper would it be if we had a national system? PETplanet: In your opinion, how does the public feel about recycling in comparison with other countries? Annett Finger: People every- where hate wasting resources and seeing their parks and waterways contaminated with litter. Australians widely support recycling but most are unaware that so much of it is/was sold to be processed overseas. Now that China has slammed their door shut on co-mingled recyclates, there is an opportunity to improve this ‘out of sight – out of mind’ mentality. Creating onshore recycling facilities will reduce carbon miles and create jobs. I’m not sure how Australian atti- tudes compare to European. How well would the Swedish system of separating out into 10 or so classes of materials be followed by Australians? I fear many would deem this too much effort at rst. But as I said earlier, there are many who focus on refusing and reducing. When I visit Germany I notice how over-packaged food and other consumer items are and how desensitised people are to single- use plastics. This might be because they trust in effective recycling. Yet, I believe that recycling is not the ultimate answer to combating marine plastic pollution. PETplanet: Let’s turn to the topic of drinks. PET is the omnipresent form of packaging for drinks bottles here in Australia; some 17 billion plastic bottles are used here in Australia per year. As far as I am aware, if a deposit system were introduced here in Victo- ria an estimated 3 billion bottles could be sent for recycling. Some of the other Australian states and territo- ries have already created successful deposit systems for the recycling of PET bottles and cans. Why hasn’t Vic- toria yet introduced such a scheme? Annett Finger: South Australia has had it for 40 years, Northern Ter- ritory since 2011, New South Wales since December last year. Queens- land will start it a scheme in Novem- ber 2018. Western Australia and Australian Capital Territory have not announced start dates yet but they are likely to be in 2019. The container deposit scheme has wide support in the population but it has been rejected by successive Victoria governments. The Napthine (Liberal) government promised to introduce a CDS if re- elected in 2014 but was voted out. It’s hard to say where the opposition to CDS in Victoria comes from but Australia’s leading recycling company, Visy, has actively advocated against CDS in the past. They argued that it would have negative impacts on kerbside recycling and reduce their revenue. PETplanet: When is the imple- mentation expected to take place in Victoria, and what is Boomerang doing in this respect? Annett Finger: We are hoping for an implementation of CDS in 2019. We will continue to raise awareness of and support for CDS in Victoria by collecting signatures, being present in social media and at local events. Next month, we are touring regional Victoria with the Big Bottle: a 4m Coke bottle with CDS slogans. The idea is to visit regional towns, connect with community and charity groups and talk to their local Members of Parlia- ment. We will conduct clean-ups of drink containers on the road, store the containers inside the Big Bottle and deliver them at the end of the trip to the Victorian premier’s ofce. PETplanet: What projects and ideas do you want to address and implement in the future? Annett Finger: I would like to be involved in extending/improving onshore plastic recycling in Victoria. Furthermore, I’m passionate about directing our society towards zero waste. Boomerang Alliance have started a campaign called ‘Commu- nities taking control’ in other states and I would like to do this in Victoria. There are so many great initiatives under way. Together, we can reach out and convert more people to a healthier lifestyle that is better for our oceans. www.boomerangalliance.org.au https://chuffed.org/project/big-bottle www.youtube.com/ watch?v=cJpD4DXwbv4&t=1s