Shoppers will be asked for their views by the end of the year on a new national scheme that aims to cut down on the mountains of plastic waste being dumped in landfill. The new regulations will put the onus on industry to use far less plastic and dramatically increase the amount of packaging being re-used and recycled.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Working mother Nadine Claydon is just home from her weekly shop.
00:07 Obviously everything's covered in plastic. We always buy these ones because the pairs are a little bit smaller.
00:18 She does what she can to recycle and food scraps go into the compost.
00:25 But since the Red Cycle soft plastic program collapsed last year, she's been left with a lot more plastic waste.
00:31 I do feel guilty constantly, to the point where there was a time where I wasn't buying any meat because there were so many meat trays and so much plastic.
00:42 A lot of plastic packaging has symbols showing it's recyclable. The problem is only 18% is actually being processed.
00:50 Australia simply doesn't have enough facilities to do it.
00:54 And the vast, vast majority has gone to landfill and some of it's ended up as litter in the ocean.
00:59 In June, the federal government foreshadowed new regulations to force food and packaging industries, including the major supermarkets, to take responsibility for the plastic.
01:09 Some industry players believe a tax or levy could be brought in for companies that don't comply.
01:16 So in the future, packaging will have to be designed to minimise waste and be reusable or recyclable.
01:24 This company's already taking responsibility by producing packaging and recycling it.
01:29 It recently opened a plastic bottle recycling plant in New South Wales, with another to open in Melbourne.
01:36 We're bringing on 75,000 tonnes of new post-consumer recycling capacity to Australia. Really exciting.
01:44 But much more infrastructure is needed across the country.
01:47 Somebody's got to want to recycle it to start off with. It's got to be profitable to recycle it.
01:52 The federal government says $690 million is being invested by governments and industry on recycling infrastructure.
02:00 Would you like a pear?
02:02 Shoppers will be asked for their views on how to reduce packaging waste before the end of the year.
02:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]