Calls to ban Australian exports of recyclable waste
Environmental activists in Indonesia have renewed calls to ban Australian exports of recyclable waste. Indonesia is a key export market for Australia’s waste paper and cardboard but there have long been claims the shipments are tainted by plastics. Pollution remains a hot topic with a report showing Indonesians are consuming enough micro-plastic each year to make three credit cards.
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00:00The nature of the recycling industry is that there's always a small amount of non-target
00:06material. That's the nature of, we have a recycling sector that's got bins that has
00:12lots of different materials in them, there's a lot of effort to separate them, but there
00:15will be a small amount of non-target material. That could be plastics, often it is difficult
00:22to separate film plastic from a piece of paper for example, so there is sometimes a bit of
00:27non-target material in it. However, there's been a big investment in Australia in improving
00:32the quality of the material that we are exporting. I think people have a perception that it's
00:38being exported as waste, which is just completely incorrect. We are part of a global economy
00:45and in your average household yellow bin, less than half of what you see in there was
00:49actually made from Australian materials. The whole purpose of recycling is to get that
00:54back into the productive economy and to do that we've got to send it back to where these
00:58materials are being manufactured. And Indonesia wants it. Absolutely, so that's the other
01:05misconception that it's Australian recyclers sending it somewhere for cheap disposal, which
01:11is absolutely not the case. The Indonesian buyers are purchasing this material because
01:18they really need it as raw material into their paper mills. They're making packaging material
01:23and they need this material to reduce their environmental impacts. Do you think that
01:29this story is getting confused with the fact that Indonesia has an awful waste problem,
01:37not waste that's sent for dealing with, but waste that is washing up on beaches and is
01:42in their rivers? Is it getting confused in that whole debate? Waste is a really big challenge
01:50for every community around the world, whether that's a highly developed country or a country
01:56with still more to do on that front. But yes, it does absolutely get confused. There's no
02:04doubt that there is a responsibility at both ends of that chain. Absolutely, Australian
02:10recyclers need to be doing as much as they can to improve the quality of materials that
02:15they're sending out to buyers, but that doesn't take away the responsibility for the buyers
02:19to also be managing their own environmental impacts and for the local regulators to be
02:24keeping an eye on how these materials are being used. Regulations and laws are becoming
02:30stricter, aren't they? I was reading Thailand is banning all incoming plastic waste in 2025.
02:37There's an EU ban from 2026 on the export of plastic waste. I mean, every country, every
02:45jurisdiction operates within its own laws. Has Indonesia kept up with that?
02:50Look, I'm certainly more familiar with the Australian laws and Australia has had some
02:55of the strongest regulation around this and has had for a long time. And there are new
03:00regulations that have come in more recently. But there are very, very strict regulations
03:05around Australian recyclers, Australian waste producers around what is legally allowed to
03:10be exported. And particularly in waste paper, there's a new level of restrictions coming
03:15where everyone will need to be registered and with a much higher level of transparency
03:21as to exactly where those materials are going. So Australia really has taken a very strong
03:25approach on how we're regulating what can be exported out of the country. But the fundamental
03:31premise is we are part of a global economy. There is a lot more material that's brought
03:36into Australia that either we have to put it into our landfills in Australia or we have
03:41to get it back into the productive economy by sending it back to where people need it
03:45to make new products.