Locals make litter collection fun, and demand government take it seriously! (photo Maggie)

Merri-bek locals hit the nature strips and gutters with tongs and bags on Sunday 20th September. People around the globe spend World Clean-up Day combing beaches, parks and inland waterways. But you don’t need to go far in Merri-bek to find packaging and litter on our streets before it heads down the drains to our creeks and bay. 

Picking up the litter is more fun when the task is shared with neighbours and the joyous enthusiasm of children. And it is satisfying to see our streets looking cleaner. As one neighbour noted afterwards, “it’s definitely less depressing!”.

We picked up 3 large bags of rubbish between us in just half an hour of work and within a block – not because we’re super fast and efficient, but because our homes are within the vicinity of businesses including Bunnings, whose packaging waste joins the random litter blowing down our Coburg North streets. 

But there’s a more effective solution than rallying my neighbours for a litter clean up: a nation-wide producer responsibility scheme for packaging.

According to Boomerang Alliance, only 16% of Australia’s single-use plastic packaging is currently recovered, the rest is polluting our waterways or landfill, while exposing us to a toxic load present in most plastic packaging. As Australians, we’re among the highest users of single-use packaging in the world, using over 1.3 million tonnes of disposable packaging.  Less than a third gets recycled.

In their latest campaign, Boomerang Alliance explains that in 2022, the Federal Government promised to reform packaging by 2025. Over 80% of respondents to public consultation favoured strong Commonwealth regulation and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a system requiring companies that produce wasteful packaging to fund its collection and recycling.

But now the Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt has announced that Commonwealth packaging reform won’t be introduced this term. This is in spite of strong agreement across environmental groups, the public and industry. Boomerang Alliance says that a failure to act now means Australia’s domestic recycling industry faces collapse and household costs will continue to skyrocket.

The state-initiated Container Refund Schemes show how producer responsibility can work. Before we had these schemes, container recycling was between 19% and 32%; now most of the schemes return over 65% of containers for recycling, according to Boomerang Alliance.

The Environment Ministers were to meet on Friday 18th September, but it’s not too late to call on the Commonwealth Government, supported by State and Territory leaders, to introduce a producer responsibility scheme for packaging and urge the Coalition and crossbench MPs to support these reforms too.

Boomerang Alliance is demanding:

• A mandatory Producer Responsibility Scheme for packaging with strict target enforcement.
• New rules to eliminate harmful chemicals from everyday packaging.
• An immediate, national and mandatory producer-funded collection and recovery service for soft plastics.

Please keep picking up the litter from our streets to save our creeks and bay, and teach your kids to, too, but also take these quick easy actions:

Use this template to write to your federal MP and the federal Environment Minister (add in why you care about plastic packaging and waste):https://boomerangalliance.good.do/cutthewrap/stopplasticwaste/

And sign this petition: https://boomerangalliance.good.do/callforpackagingreform/callforepr/