7 November 2019
BREAKING NEWS | 7 November 2019: Minister for Environment and Great Barrier Reef Leeanne Enoch today released Queensland’s Plastic Pollution Reduction Plan, which sets out the proposed way forward for dealing with single-use plastics in our state. View the Plastic Pollution Reduction Plan.
On Friday, 8 November the Commonwealth and State/Territory Environment Ministers are meeting in Adelaide to decide the future of recycling in Australia and discuss urgent action on plastic pollution.
What Wildlife Queensland wants from Environment Ministers to save recycling and create a circular economy:
- Action on the national ban on the export of mixed waste and contaminated recyclables and commitment to investment in domestic recycling.
- Agreement on procurement policies for recycled content in products by government and business, that will create a market for recyclables, particularly plastics.
- Expand all state/territory Container Deposit Schemes to include wine and spirit containers and potentially refillable containers; a requirement that all collected containers have significant recycled content from 2023; and consideration of an increase in the deposit on containers to 20 cents by 2023 if best practice targets not met.
What Wildlife Queensland wants from Environment Ministers to stop plastic pollution:
- A national Plastic Bag Ban and Container Deposit Scheme in each State.
- A national phase-out of thick plastic bags by 2021.
- A phase-out of single-use (non-compostable) takeaway packaging, including coffee cups/lids, straws, cups and containers, cutlery, bags and plastic bottles by 2021.
Download our letter of recommendations to the ministers here.
More information
After each meeting Environment Ministers release a communique which you can see here. You can check out the result from 8 November here.