During Estimates hearings on Thursday 25 July 2024, I asked the Director General of the Department of Environment, Science and Innovation about post-consumer recycling of plastics.
You can read my question and his full response below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
Mr BERKMAN: I want to refer, first of all, to my pre-estimates question on notice, which related to the recycled input into plastic bags around the plastic bag ban. Your response made clear that there was some content on the government website that referred to post-consumer recycled plastics that was inconsistent with what the regulation requires, and that has now been changed, as I understand it.
Mr Merrick, was it at an earlier point the department’s intention for the 80 per cent recycled minimum to be a genuine post-consumer recycled requirement? If so, when did that change?
Mr Merrick: I thank the member for the question. With the minister’s approval, I might call forward the head of the Office of Circular Economy, Mr Andrew Connor, to speak to that.
Mr Connor: I thank the member for the question. I think in fairness, yes, there had been deliberate consideration given to the inclusion of the post-consumer plastic versus the pre-consumer plastic when we were putting the recommendations together around the provisions within the legislation. Some key things have happened in the Australian recycling plastic marketplace in recent years. Most significant was the collapse of the REDcycle soft plastics recycling scheme. Since that happened there has been a lot of effort going on around the country to re-establish effective soft plastic collections and recycling. Given that and the impact on the supply of recycled soft plastics in the local market, we did make a deliberate decision to include the pre-consumer soft plastic that can be recycled and should be recycled because you are effectively talking about offcuts within manufacturing processes.
Mr BERKMAN: Understood. As part of that shift in position away from post-consumer recycled plastics, was there pressure brought to bear from the National Retail Association or other peak bodies that drove that shift?
Mr Connor: Not that I am aware of. There are some complexities, particularly around traceability and verification of the sources of recycled soft plastic. We do accept that there is improvement that is needed around the trackability. There is also work happening particularly through the Cooperative Research Centre for the Solving Plastic Waste, which the Queensland government is a founding partner of. That is aimed at improving traceability of plastics and recycling generally.