News

21 August 2024

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss this very important review.

And I first want to start by thanking the committee, the secretarial staff that are no works very hard in bring it all together, we had a number of public hearings on a significant number of submissions, and also we did a number of in-person visits around the country. And it was incredibly instructive to see the submissions by so many in that process. I would also like to thank some organisations in Warringah that are doing a fantastic job of addressing the problems of plastics and micro plastics. Of course, Warringah is a place with many waterways, we have Manly Dam, we have many harbour coves and inlets and then we have beaches. And so we can see first-hand that impact the plastics and micro plastics have on our water and environment and waterways.

And as this report identifies, we are drowning in waste. So would like to start by thanking organisations like AUSMAT, who made submissions and gave evidence to the enquiry and who also started one of their programs in Warringah around East Esplanade in Manly and it is a program where they really monitor how much plastics and micro plastics they find in that area. It is citizen science, it is volunteer based, and they turn up on a very regular basis to monitor that plastic content. Other organisations like Pittwater eco- adventures are doing a phenomenal job on a very regular basis of cleaning up some of those harbour beaches. Because unfortunately, maybe differently to surf beaches, the harbour beaches accumulate a huge amount of rubbish and plastics that has come off the boats and I guess recreational activities in our harbour. As this report has identified, plastic is everywhere. It's overrunning our streets, parks, beaches, our coastlines.

This report appropriately titled Drowning in waste: Plastic pollution in Australia's oceans and waterways where it lays out quite plainly that we need to take action. Australians consume more single waste plastic per person than any other country in the world bar Singapore. Now, I know a lot of Australians think that we are doing good, we think we're good citizens and we think we are quite engaged with recycling and being plastic aware, but this statistic shows we are not doing as well as we think. So I repeat, we are the highest, except for Singapore, we consumed the most single-use plastic per person than any other country. So clearly we have to do better. In 2020 over 2021 Australia used 3-.17 9 million tonnes of plastic of which only 14 per cent was recycled. So we are huge contributor to this problem. Around 130,000 tons of plastic leak into the environment annually, including into our oceans and waterways. There are currently 150 million metric tons of plastic pollution in the ocean and by 2040 global plastic pollution is expected to double, with the ocean's plastic pollution expected to more than quadruple. By 2050 the amount of plastic waste in the environment could increase to 26 billion tons if no action is taken.

And it gets worse. The breakdown of plastics into micro plastics poses further risk to marine life, leads to blockages in their digestive system, malnutrition, and death. And it really is no surprise that many are so concerned, plastic illusion is a global crisis and its harming our environment, wildlife, and ultimately us. There isn't much data yet showing the impact on human life of that ingestion of plastic, but the ingestion is happening. So Key facts as highlighted in the report are that we have a massive issue. There is a huge problem that we must act on because we are quite literally drowning in plastic. The key recommendation of this report is for the National Plastic Plan to be updated. In particular, the report notes 'The plan should contain reporting and transparency measures to monitor progress and accountability on all stakeholders and be based on an overarching circular economy strategy and it needs to be developed with stakeholders through promote sustainable practices and recycling and responsible waste management.' And transition plans. This is incredibly urgent. Our current National Plastic Plan is a disjointed one, with some goals included in the original plan already achieved prior to the plans development. So it is begs the question of what is it really achieving?

Stakeholders told our committee that they were lukewarm at best about the current plan and so a new plan must urgently be developed in consultation with state and territory governments, industry, and community, coordinated nationally to prioritise industry accountability. So most importantly though I feel strongly that what we need is the proper amount of plastics must- the responsibility must shift back to manufacturers, the committee found that manufacturers find it cheaper and easier to use virgin polymers rather than recycled materials in plastic product, which means we are continually making the problem worse, we are adding more and more and more plastic to the system, so this use of virgin polymers for that new plastics is a problem. Virgin polymers are manufactured using un- recycled and unused materials, it is ultimately oil, right, this is big oil wanting to maintain the addiction on plastic so we continue to use their product. But technology has moved. We know we can use much more recycled content and that must be the direction we need to go when.

We heard submissions to the committee that believe the Federal Government should implement a tax or a levy that specifically targets virgin plastic to discourage its consumption or use and promote the use of recycled materials. Whilst the committee has recommended investigating such a levy on the use of virgin polymer it did fall short from actually requiring that that become mandatory. I'm concerned that for a long time we have been waiting for this. We have had industry voluntary codes and I believe time is up, that we have had decades of lacklustre action from manufacturers and industry and its time actually for them to have their house in order. The government should be implementing mandates for minimum recycled content for any plastics imported and they should be mandating limits on the number of polymer variations. So to put it in layman's terms, the number of variations to the recipes or types of plastics that are manufactured. Because unfortunately the catch is to establish a good recycling industry, the difficulty is the more polymer, variations of polymers we have, the types of plastics, the harder it is to actually establish proper recycling supply chains and then the circular economy aspects for all the different types. And if you limit it down to less numbers of them, more specific ones, then you could facilitate a much higher amount of recycling, which is incredibly important.

Now, micro plastics of course are the much tinier pellets and smaller pieces of plastic and they are more insidious and get into more areas. Essentially, it is a small piece of plastic less than five millimetres long and they are found everywhere in all parts of our environment all over the globe. There have even made it into polar regions and in foods such as sea salt and beer, so it's everywhere. Studies around the world are showing that micro plastics can carry harmful chemicals and toxins, but we're still learning the full extent to which micro plastics may be harmful. And they are everywhere and it is a reminder that sometimes technology might create progress, but sometimes it takes us back. There was a lot of concern raised about artificial turf when it comes to playing fields for sport, a lot of concerns about the plastic rubber that is used in play gym equipment, all of those uses of plastic do not adequately - we do not require adequate, I guess, protection of drainage around them so they leak into the environment, they leak into small particles and that creates a huge amount of micro plastic in the surrounding environments from those types of areas.

So, it's really important that the recommendations are addressing a number of issues in relation to this report and I hope the government does take note of this. We also saw, of course, Indigenous communities and First Nations Australians efforts in reducing plastics in our environment, so we have a lot of expertise, a huge amount of, I think, willingness, when I visit every school in Warringah there is always plastic free Wednesdays and there is a focus by young people of limiting it, but clearly we need to sheeted back home to manufacturers who are still producing too much plastic and having too much in the system.