Due for Senate debate this week, the Government’s Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill has now been delayed until at least November. This allows more time for stakeholder and community input, as well as constructive cross-party negotiations on amendments to improve a once-in-a-generation opportunity for legislative reform that builds a circular economy and protects\u00a0our oceans.
\nGreens spokesperson for waste and recycling, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said, \u201cLast year\u00a0our Prime Minister said that his daughter had urged him to do something to tackle the scourge of plastic pollution in our oceans. He addressed the United Nations in New York, promising Australian leadership on this most critical of marine pollution issues.
\n\u201cThe Government\u2019s long-awaited legislation to fix the waste crisis, though, does not include any measures for\u00a0reducing or recycling plastic packaging.
\n\u201cThe Greens are working constructively across party lines to fix this\u00a0and have circulated a series of amendments\u00a0to ban single-use plastics and legislate producer responsibility for packaging within the new product stewardship framework.
\n\u201cThese measures are broadly supported by key recycling industry groups, local government associations and NGOs.
\n\u201cYou can\u2019t rely on voluntary, industry-led approaches to reducing plastics and increasing recycling rates.\u00a0They have consistently failed in the past and the current bill does nothing to fix this.
\n“The waste ban in the bill will also not achieve its desired purpose of forcing Australia to build a circular economy if the confidence to invest in infrastructure, innovation and jobs is missing.
\n\u201cA proper plan needs to provide business certainty for increased investment and jobs.
\n“This won\u2019t happen when key recycling industry stakeholders are not on board with the Government’s proposed packaging industry-led approach.
\n\u201cThe Greens’ proposed\u00a0measures\u00a0are\u00a0the obvious way forward and we are optimistic that the Government will listen to waste industry stakeholders before it brings its legislation back in November.
\n“The Greens won\u2019t let this become a wasted opportunity to\u00a0protect\u00a0our oceans and build\u00a0green jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Due for Senate debate this week, the Government’s Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill has now been delayed until at least November. This allows more time for stakeholder and community input, as well as constructive cross-party negotiations on amendments to improve a once-in-a-generation opportunity for legislative reform that builds a circular economy and protects\u00a0our oceans. Greens … Continue reading “Government's bill a waste without plastics and packaging reform”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}