Page 1742 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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plastics, as is the ACT. The ACT government believes that we should consider phasing out or banning single-use plastics in the ACT, thus going beyond our existing ban on lightweight single-use plastic bags. To do this, we need to continue our work on building a circular economy. We need to work with industry through innovation to help design out and minimise problematic plastics and move to more sustainable alternatives where they exist.
We want to ensure that, as part of a responsible approach to plastics, any government intervention is practical, particularly for consumers, and addresses important social equity concerns as well. We are currently seeking feedback from the community. We look forward to seeing the community’s response to that as it continues.
Our government also represents the interests of Canberrans as they relate to single-use plastic packaging, working with other Australian jurisdictions and the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation on this issue. They have very strong targets as an industry to help phase out single-use problematic and unnecessary plastics. They have actually been leading governments in a sense, but it is important that we take further strong action. There are things that we can do as consumers and businesses to help reduce the use of problematic and unnecessary plastics. The government also has a role to play.
Coffee cups are a daily reminder of single-use plastics in our throwaway society. It is estimated that one billion coffee cups are sold in Australia each year and most of these currently end up in landfill. Unfortunately, as takeaway coffees are usually consumed in public places, they are often disposed of in general waste bins or, sadly, some end up as litter.
Nearly 32 per cent of the volume of all litter items counted in the ACT consisted of takeaway food packaging in 2017-18. However, it is estimated that by using re-usable cups the average Canberran coffee drinker could save a bar fridge worth of space in landfill each year. This equates to 87 litres of uncrushed waste or five kilograms worth of waste. Whether or not coffee cups are recyclable depends on what they are made from, how they are disposed of and which facilities they are treated in.
Mixed materials such as coffee cups cause issues for recyclers and are better off avoided. Most single-use disposable cups are made from cardboard, with a thin layer of plastic to make them waterproof. The cups are made of a similar material to milk and juice cartons, which are accepted in recycling in all Australian states and territories.
The use of mixed materials presents recycling challenges for many packaging items, not just coffee cups. The ACT commingled materials recovery facility, the MRF, recycles paper, cardboard, rigid plastics, aluminium, steel and glass. The MRF sorts, aggregates and bundles these materials together. They are then sold on for recycling. Despite challenges with coffee cups being made of mixed material, the ACT accepts disposable coffee cups at the MRF in the paper recycling stream for cardboard-based coffee cups, but not their lids. Generally, they arrive in the MRF flattened. They are classified as paper and are sold to Visy in Tumut for reprocessing, where the fibre content is extracted and used.
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