On Tuesday, Australia takes another step towards reshaping its throw-away society.
A range of single-use plastic, including straws, cutlery and microbeads in shampoo, will be banned in its most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), to reduce waste.
"Australia has been very active over the last few years in moving to ban single-use plastics. We now have bans in place in over half of Australia's states and territories," says Shane Cucow, the plastics campaign manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society.
"It's been incredible progress considering just two years ago, not a single state and territory had banned single-use plastics."
Australia has a complex record of plastic waste. Though it has long been accused of inaction, the country has also seen celebrated examples of leadership.
One of the forefathers of the anti-waste movement was Ian Kiernan, a Sydney-born property developer who became a professional yachtsman.
In the 1980s, he had an environmental epiphany in the waters of the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean during a solo race worldwide.
"He was horrified by the amount of pollution, particularly plastic," explains one of his daughters, Pip. "So, that was the impetus to return and do something about it."
In 1989, Ian Kiernan launched Clean Up Sydney Harbour, a community effort to tackle litter in one of the world's most famous waterways.
"He was worrying that no one would turn up, but 40,000 Sydneysiders turned up," Ms Kiernan tells the BBC.
It became a national event a year later, and Clean Up Australia Day was born.
"It is quintessentially Australian in that we are great volunteers, but we don't like being told what to do. Clean Up Australia is about empowering you. You choose where you clean up. We'll give you the tools," adds Ms Kiernan, the chair of the organisation her father set up, attracting a million volunteer waste warriors each year.
"He'd be encouraged to see that we are phasing out problematic single-use plastic items. But he would equally be frustrated that we are still producing and wasting so much plastic worldwide."
In June, NSW banned lightweight plastic bags. Tuesday's ban also includes single-use plastic drink stirrers and cotton buds, as well as expanded polystyrene containers for takeaway food.
Queensland will disallow many of these products and heavyweight plastic shopping bags in September 2023 under a proposed "five-year roadmap." Victoria will act sooner and will ban "problematic single-use plastics from sale or supply" from 1 February 2023.
The pace of legislative reform might be impressive, but Australia's mission to tame its plastic waste problem has a long way to go.
"We're just at the start of our journey. Across the board, Australia's plastic packaging recycling rate is still just 16%. Our national target is 70%," Mr Cucow says. "So, we are far from recovering and recycling all of our plastic in Australia.
"Australia is so far behind in recycling our plastic packaging, and one of the big barriers is soft plastics, which are very difficult to recycle. That's a legacy of decades of neglect."
Comments