AUSTRALIA – The government of Australia has temporarily lifted the nationwide plastic export ban, allowing Oatley Resources Australia to send sorted household plastic waste overseas for recycling.
The decision was announced by Australia’s Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek, reports ABC News.
According to Plibersek, the 12-month exemption will permit the export of polyethylene terephthalate waste to foreign countries so that it can be processed and recycled into new products.
The export ban was implemented in 2020 as a result of the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 and was unanimously agreed upon by all the state governments of the country.
In response to the latest decision, the Australian political party the Greens stated on 18 May, claiming that this ban exemption showcases the government’s failure to “hold big polluters to account”.
Calling this move as a “backflip”, the Greens stated that this decision represents how “broken” Australia’s waste and recycling systems have become.
Greens’ waste and recycling spokesperson and senator Peter Whish-Wilson said: “We have had six years to come up with a plan to deal with our waste problem, but no government has been brave enough to deal with the elephant in the room, which is regulating plastic packaging in this country.
“The recycling sector has consistently called for legally binding and mandatory national packaging targets to have the confidence to invest in upgrading the infrastructure necessary to process plastic and other waste.
“Plastic producers need to clean up their act and take responsibility for the mess they make, and governments need to enforce this through laws and binding regulations. There is nothing complicated about this, it should have been fixed years ago.”
Ms. Plibersek has hit back at critics saying that the Liberals and Nationals made a lot of flashy promises about recycling but did nothing to deliver them.
According to her, the government had committed $250 million to develop recycling infrastructure, and 11 of the 48 funded facilities had already been delivered.
Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association chief executive Gayle Sloan said the exemption would hopefully give the industry enough time to build infrastructure to process Australian waste.
However, Ms. Sloan said that even with that infrastructure in place, the sector would continue to struggle to find buyers for recycled waste until regulations were introduced requiring manufacturers to use recycled Australian waste, rather than importing recycled materials.
For all the latest packaging and printing industry news from Africa and the World, subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, like us on Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
