Productivity Commission Stuck in Dark Ages on Recycling

Tuesday, 23 May 2006 23:07

The groups are calling on all state and federal governments to reject the report and get on with the job of encouraging reusing and recycling of materials, at the environment ministers joint meeting next month.

“This report is a policy cul-de-sac and its only use would be to send it off for recycling

or if you are the Commission, you would send it to landfill” said Jane Castle, TEC

Campaigner. “The report ignores the huge majority of submissions that supported more resource recovery. Only seven submissions from over a hundred to the Commission supported landfill over more recycling. This report won’t stop the tide of community and business efforts towards further recycling.”

“This is just a last-ditch attempt to protect retailers from facing up to the inevitable phase-out of plastic bags,” said Jenny Henty, Environment Victoria’s Zero Waste Director. “The failure to meet voluntary plastic bag reduction targets shows that we need regulation, as has been promised by all the Australian Governments.  The bizarre calculations of these economists won’t change the fact that the plastic bag is on the way out.”

“Millions of tonnes of valuable materials will continue to be wasted if we go down the landfill slippery slope that the Productivity Commission recommends,” said Suzie Brown, Australian Conservation Foundation Sustainability Coordinator. “The Commission is putting short term profits ahead of responsible conservation of scarce natural resources.  The report claims that only two percent of plastic bags end up as litter.  Going by this figure, this means 94 million plastic bags are ending up in our parks, waterways, streets and beaches every year.”

“The Federal Government’s own Threatened Species Scientific Committee has found plastic bags and other marine debris are a direct threat to 20 marine species, including the Loggerhead Turtle, Southern Right Whale, Blue Whale and Tristan Albatross,” said Ian Kiernan, CEO of Clean Up Australia. “The Minister for Environment and Heritage has accepted that evidence and listed plastic bags as a Key Threatening Process under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.”

A Newspoll survey commissioned by Clean Up Australia in April 2005 found more than 80 per cent of consumers support a ban on single use plastic bags.