ABC RN Breakfast interview with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RN BREAKFAST WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
WEDNESDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2023 

SUBJECTS: RECYCLING; ENVIRONMENT LAW REFORM; VOICE REFERENDUM. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: The collapse of soft plastic recycler REDcycle last year was another reminder of the challenges posed by our ever-increasing consumption generally and consumption of plastics. Ambitious plans by the Morrison government to develop a domestic recycling industry yielded, well, few results. The Albanese government says it’s bringing on more recycling solutions with new projects to shift approximately a million tonnes of waste – to give you a sense of what that means, it’s kind of the weight of approximately 19 Harbour Bridges – to be recycled. So how quickly are we getting there? This morning we’re joined by Tanya Plibersek, the Environment Minister. Minister, welcome to the program.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Great to be with you, Patricia. 

KARVELAS: It will take 126 of the projects that have been funded to actually get that million tonnes of waste into recycling. But just 24 are up and running. So when will the rest – the other 102 projects – start running?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, they’re being built at the moment, Patricia. And this is just such exciting news. We’ve now hit that million-tonne mark of extra recycles capacity – as you said, almost the weight of 19 Harbour Bridges. And they’re right across the country. So they’re tyre recycling, soft plastics, obviously glass, paper, cardboard. We’re doing a lot of great work in converting organic waste to soil additives and so on. And not only is this fantastic for the environment, we’re also talking about an extra 2,800 jobs right now. The other part – exciting part of this news is we’re about halfway through the money that we’ve got planned to roll out. So there is still more to come. Once we’ve got all of these facilities fully up and running that’s about halfway to what we will be able to do as a nation in the next couple of years. 

KARVELAS: An official review by the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation this year found that Australia recycles just 18 per cent of plastic packaging. So how do you – how much will these projects increase that by? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, that was a really quite shocking review because of course we’ve set packaging targets as a nation in the past to reuse, recycle, reprocess Australian packaging. We’ve haven’t done it. We’ve actually failed quite dismally in this area, and people will, of course, remember the collapse of REDcycle as one stunning example of failure in this area. 

We’ve decided as environment ministers that we need to regulate packaging, and we’ll do that by 2025. So I’m working with environment ministers in the states and territories to regulate packaging. We need to use less of it in the first place and we need to make sure that the packaging we do use is able to be reused, recycled, reprocessed in line with circular economy principles. We’re working on that right now with environment ministers. 

KARVELAS: How close are you to the government’s target of recycling 70 per cent of plastic packaging by 2025? It’s not far away.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No. We’re a long way off the target so far, Patricia. And that’s why we’re making this massive investment to increase our recycling capacity. But we also need to do more than that. We’ve already announced a plastics passport. We need to be able to track the type of plastic that we’re using, the type of plastic we’re recycling. Packaging manufacturers say that they would be more confident in using recycled plastic content in their packaging if they were a hundred per cent sure of the different polymers, for example, that were in the plastic pellets that they’re getting out of the recycling facilities. 

And we’ve also said that we’ll take a leading role in the negotiation of the international plastics treaty that’s designed to rid the world of plastic pollution by 2040. We know if we continue on this path we’ve got really serious problems. In fact, by 2050 we estimate that the weight of plastics in our ocean will outweigh fish in our ocean if we continue going the same way that we’re going. 

So we’ve got to do the work at home. We’re working with Coles and Woolies and the big supermarket giants to re-establish the collection at supermarkets that we had before the collapse of REDcycle. We’re massively increasing our recycling capacity. So you’ve got to have collection. You’ve got to have recycling capacity. And then you’ve got to have a market. You’ve got to give confidence to the people who are buying that recycled content to reuse it in the future. They need to be certain of what they’re getting. They need to be certain if they’re using it in food packaging, for example, that they’re using food grade plastics. 

And then we’ve got to do our bit internationally, of course. That’s Australia playing a leading role in the international Plastics Treaty, but it’s also working with nations in our region. We’ve got big problems with things like ghost nets as well as other marine plastics, just pulling them out of the ocean. They don’t originate in Australian waters, but they end up in Australian waters. So we’re doing very good work, for example, in northern Australia with Indigenous rangers pulling those plastics out of the water. 

KARVELAS: Okay. Minister, when I asked you about that 70 per cent target by 2025, you said you’re a long way off. So is it right to assume that you just won’t make that target? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, that’s why we’re redoubling our efforts now. That’s why we’re investing very substantially. The extra – 

KARVELAS: So you will make that 70 per cent target? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we’re doing absolutely everything we can to meet the target – 

KARVELAS: Can you guarantee it? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We’re doing absolutely everything we can to meet the target. And that’s why we’ve got this fantastic announcement today of an extra million tonnes to be recycled – 

KARVELAS: So you still think you’ll make it? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yes, I’m very hopeful we can. I’ve got to work with state and territory environment ministers. They’re responsible with local government for collection. They’re working closely with us on investing in these new recycling facilities, but it’s a tough job. We set some ambitious targets as a nation, and I inherited virtually no progress on those. But we’ve got to make the effort, Patricia, because we know that too much plastic is leaking into our environment. It’s ending up in our waterways. It’s also ending up as micro plastics and nano plastics actually in our bodies. We’re ingesting it through our waters, through the meat and fish that we eat. It is a very serious environmental problem that we need to tackle. 

KARVELAS: You mentioned the collapse of REDcycle. Coles and Woolworths said they’d be looking to do their own soft plastics recycling. Where’s that up to? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yep, we’re in continued contact with Coles and Woolies. They say they’ll be able to re-establish limited collection in the second half of this year. 

KARVELAS: We’re very much in the second half of this year. 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We absolutely are, Patricia. 

KARVELAS: So when? Is it really going to happen this year? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Don’t for a moment think I’m not on their case. And we want to see the re‑establishment of national collection next year. We’re working with Coles and Woolies to re-establish the supermarket-based collection, but I’m also working with state and territory governments and local government on other ways of collecting soft plastics. So there are some local government areas that are trialling  a separate bag that contains soft plastics that can be pulled out of the recycling bin and processed separately from the other recycling in that bin. We’re trialling that in a number of areas. 

But the first thing to do is reduce the use of soft plastics wherever we can. The second thing is to look at alternative materials. And, of course, our National Reconstruction Fund has funding set aside for investing in the commercialisation of products we’ve seen like seaweed and algae-based plastics, obviously corn starch and other plant-based plastics. What we need to make sure of is that those innovative products actually have a lower lifetime impact on the environment. And so we’re doing the science and the investing to make sure we’ve got those alternatives. And then working, as I said, not just with the supermarkets but also with local government and state governments to make sure we’ve got plastic collection and demand for that recycled content. 

KARVELAS: Yep, Minister, you said you’re on their case. Are they proving to be difficult? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It’s taking longer than I’d like. And that’s why we continue to urge a swifter response here. Australians –

KARVELAS: Have they explained to you why, though? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, a lot of these plastics are very complex to recycle. And we need to do what we’re doing – invest in the facilities to have the recycling capacity. We have to create the market for the recycled content. But we also need to make sure that consumers are saying very clearly to the producers of plastic packaging products, “We’re going to buy less of your product if you don’t take responsibility for the waste you’re creating.” And we’re seeing a very strong message from consumers to that end as well. 

KARVELAS: In December last year you promised to introduce reform to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and introduce a new environment protection agency to enforce it. Now, that’s all, of course, in response to the Graeme Samuel review. When will that happen? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we’ll have legislation for consultation towards the end of this year. We’ve obviously been consulting the whole way through with environment groups and business, but we’ll have legislation to look at by the end of this year for introduction into parliament next year. This is a huge piece of work. Professor Graeme Samuel basically said that the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that we’ve had for about 20 years is not fit for purpose. It's not fit to protect the environment. We’ve seen continued environmental decline under the laws as they exist at the moment. And it certainly doesn’t work for business. They complain about the inconsistency and the time it takes to make decisions under the EPBC Act as it exists at the moment. 

So we're doing a complete rewrite of our environmental laws, and including, as you said, brand new features like an environment protection agency, the first time Australia will have a national environment protection agency, the first time bringing native forests logging under the power of the environmental laws in Australia. We’re introducing a new Environment Information Australia, a new agency as well, that will give us the baseline data that we can measure our environmental progress against and that can substantially improve the time that it takes to make environmental decisions because we’ll have baseline data available to us. And, you know, Professor Samuel made a number of very substantial recommendations. We’re rewriting our laws to be in line with those efforts to better protect our environment and give faster, clearer decisions for business. 

KARVELAS: Tanya Plibersek, final question: advocates for the Indigenous voice will issue a new appeal to multicultural Australians to try and get them across the line. Is that the group that you think is most gettable? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I think every Australian is gettable if we get the right information into their hands. 

KARVELAS: Well, you can say that, but is this an important group? I mean, you come from a multicultural family.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Of course, yeah. 

KARVELAS: What’s your understanding of what’s going on in some of these communities? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think there’s fantastic support from a big range of multicultural leaders saying this is a very simple request. It’s a very simple request to acknowledge that Australia has 65,000 years of culture and our constitution written just over 120 years ago doesn’t appropriately recognise that. And, secondly, that we make better decisions when we consult the people that we’re making those decisions on behalf of. It’s a very simple request. And I think the important message is there’s a lot of misinformation out there. There’s a lot of distraction out there. Don’t get caught up in the distraction. Don’t get caught up in the misinformation. Think about this very simple request for acknowledgement and listening. 

KARVELAS: Thanks so much for your time this morning. 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It’s a pleasure. 

KARVELAS: Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. You’re listening to ABC RN Breakfast.

END