Inexplicably strange
Dale, Fair Food’s content creator, posted a clip on Instagram this week of Chop, our beloved delivery driver, talking about the competition the drivers are running for who picks up the most recyclable items in a day.
The categories are:
- Fair Fizz cylinders in a day – current record 18.
- Soft plastic recycle bags in a day – current record 22
- Schulz refillable glass milk bottles in a day – current record 65.
The drivers’ competition doesn’t cover all the other packaging we pick up like our cardboard boxes, coolers, insulated pouches, ice bottles, perforated cardboard wrap, Dirt laundry refills, Dr Planet soap bottles and even rubber bands.
We know doing all these things seriously reduces one of Fair Food’s biggest sources of carbon pollution (even more than our delivery vans!).
We know from your feedback that all this reusing, refilling and recycling of packaging is a small but deeply satisfying thing.
We also know that reducing packaging waste is one of the few things Australians universally agree on.
Which made the government’s decision not to implement the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme that mandates minimum recycled-content in plastic packaging, packaging that’s designed to be recycled, on-pack recyclability labelling and a national collection, sorting and recycling system all funded by the companies who create and use the packaging – so inexplicably strange.
Even stranger was that everyone agreed this was something we needed to do: the plastic makers, the recyclers, even the Food and Grocery Council, were all urging the government to introduce the scheme.
Enter Murray Watt, Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, who shelved the scheme because the EPR would have added to cost of living pressures.
To which everyone called BS – one report estimated the EPR would add about 20 cents to the weekly shop.
More plausibly the government is scared the EPR will be labelled a “big fat grocery shopper’s tax” during the next election.
Whether it is or not is unknown, what is known, however, is that the plastic recycling plants the government spent $137-odd million dollars setting up after the REDcycle collapse are in danger of collapsing themselves.
Recently, SA soft plastics processor Recycling Plastics Australia went into administration and many others are in danger of closing without the EPR’s mandatory recycled content laws in place.
With footy finals upon us it’s illustrative to know that we are still burying twenty-two MCG’s full of plastic packaging waste in our landfills every year with another three MCG’s of plastic ending up in our oceans annually.
Of course all this plastic is being found inside of us and quite likely inside the brains of our politicians perhaps affecting their better judgement.
If you’d like to help them with their decision-making there’s nothing like a short email to your local Federal member.
Or alternatively, you could send an email using circular economy org, The Boomerang Alliance’s, handy template page and/or sign their open letter or petition.
Have a great week
Chris
