2021
Milestone details
2019
- Released the National Waste Policy Action Plan 2019 as agreed by the Australian Government, state and territory governments and the Australian Local Government Association
2020
- Provided $19 million through Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) grant funding for 9 industry-led projects focussed on plastics, including $3 million to develop micro-factories for recycling waste plastics into engineered products
- Delivered first National Plastics Summit at Australian Parliament House
Received industry pledge announcements from:- Pact Group: will invest $500 million in facilities, research, and technology to increase the use of sustainable packaging, seeking to have 30 per cent recycled content across its product portfolio by 2025 and keep nearly two billion plastic containers out of landfill
- McDonalds: will phase out plastic cutlery by the end of 2020, preventing 585 tonnes of plastic waste each year. This is additional to 500 million straws phase out, taking total annual plastic reduction to 860 tonnes
- Nestlé: will partner with waste management company IQ Renew to trial soft plastics collection and recycling from 100,000+ homes, to divert approx. 750 tonnes of soft plastic from landfill
- Kmart: signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment mid-2019 and committed to phase-out 10 priority own brand single-use plastic products by July 2021
- Coca Cola Amatil: committed to all of Coke’s soft drink and water brands, 600ml and below, being produced from 100 per cent recycled plastic
- Granted $2.1 million through the Environment Restoration Fund to Planet Ark and Keep Australia Beautiful community campaigns to clean-up coastlines and rivers
- Committed $14.8 million to remove ghost nets and marine debris from locations in Northern Australia
- Invested $7 million through the National Product Stewardship Investment Fund, to support 10 schemes (either new or existing) targeting plastic products
- Introduced Commonwealth Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Bill 2020 to Parliament
- Secured passage of Australia's first ever national waste legislation, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020
- Phased out plastic microbeads in Australia, with 99.3% of relevant products – rinse off cosmetic, personal care and cleaning products – now free of plastic microbeads
2021
- CSIRO released report: A circular economy roadmap for plastics, tyres, glass and paper in Australia
- Supported pursuing coordinated global action to address marine plastic pollution at the United Nations Environment Assembly
- Provided $9.2 million via CRC-P grant round 10 for projects focused on plastics
- Launched the first National Plastics Plan
- Nestle and IQ Renew delivered prototype KitKat wrapper, representing Australia’s opportunity to close the loop on recycling soft plastics. Created by a coalition of companies with a shared vision
- Environment Ministers agreed to eight problematic and unnecessary single-use plastic product types for industry to phase out nationally by 2025
- Continued roll out of $190 million Recycling Modernisation Fund, with states, territories and industry to leverage $600+ million in co-contributions, to build waste processing capability. By May 2021, additional processing capacity – just for plastic waste – stood at 163,721 tonnes
- Announced $5 million to expand adoption of the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) to 20,000 small-to-medium enterprise businesses
- Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, and big food manufacturers committed to making all plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025
- Delivered first independent review of National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure 2011 and the Australian Packaging Covenant to evaluate the co-regulatory arrangements
- Waste plastic export ban stage 1 starts; mixed plastics that are not of a single resin/polymer type, cannot be exported
- National Plastics Design Summit
2022
- Waste plastic export ban stage 2 starts; single resin/polymer plastics that have not been reprocessed cannot be exported