Dr WOODRUFF – Businesses across Tasmania are anxious to transition away from the use of plastics. What is the commencement date for the statewide ban on problematic single use plastics? What initiatives or programs have you funded in this Budget and the forward Estimates to assist that?
Mr JAENSCH – Our Government will phase out problematic single use plastics across the state in 2025, which is consistent with the national decision made at the Environment Ministers meeting in April 2021 and re-confirmed in October 2022. The department is collaborating with key stakeholders to lead a phase-out in Government facilities and at events on public land, by the end of 2023.
Government agencies are working together to identify the challenges and opportunities of implementing the phase-out as we build towards a broader legislative ban. Guidelines have been developed to support Government agencies and event organisers on the path to a plastic-free future. A series of event organisers have been supported in their endeavours to be plastic-free and educational resources are being developed for schools, as well.
Engagement has also been ongoing with the Local Government Association of Tasmania and with local councils on actions that they are taking to support the phase-out and eventually ban of problematic single use plastics. This program of work was allocated $1 million in funding over four years, which includes the development of a comprehensive implementation plan, drafting of legislation and an allocation of $100 000 to support businesses through that transition process.
A research consultancy is well progressed in exploring the capacity within Tasmania for recovery of compostable alternatives to plastic items. This is important work to minimise any unintended consequences of the legislation, such as compostable packaging ending up in landfill; and to ensure adequate consideration of the national discussion on the risk of PFAS in compostable alternatives to problematic single use plastics.
Given the complexity of these issues, the policy design work which is underway will ensure that we achieve a good outcome for businesses, communities and the environment. As I have said before, and we have discussed this in parliament, banning stuff is easy – working out what it is replaced with, and what happens to that at the end of its life, is equally important. The issue around traces of PFAS in some compostable alternatives to plastics is an issue that many states are looking at.
Many local governments in Tasmania are also looking at it, so that we don’t inadvertently end up with a stream of composted material going into food production and transferring PFAS into our foods. I’ve raised that matter and it has been discussed at some length at the Environment Ministers Roundtable, chaired by Tanya Plibersek. She has undertaken steps to seek to develop a standard for food service packaging that can be applied, that excludes materials with PFAS in them. That should give us a clearer path to specifying not only what we need to ban, but what are the required alternatives for disposable compostable alternatives.
The other questions that we are grappling with are how, particularly in public places, do we provide for a composting public waste bin – who manages those, and how; and how does that fit within our statewide rollout where we may not have a public FOGO capability in place on the ground already. So, there’s lots of work being done at a number of levels. A couple of our city councils are highly engaged in this work as well and I commend them for their efforts here in Hobart and Launceston. I know that others are watching them closely to be rapid adopters of the solutions that they come up with working with us.
Dr WOODRUFF – Thanks. It sounds like a tiny amount of money – $100 000 to support businesses in that transition sounds like a paltry figure to me, given that we want to be providing incentives and support for businesses. It’s a big transition. West Australia, South Australia and Queensland are all over this stuff, like suitable compostable alternatives. Why are we reinventing the wheel? We don’t need to do that. We can just adopt what other states have done the work on. You said before we don’t have many resources and we’re a small state; so why aren’t we picking up the stuff that’s hanging on the tree from other states?
Mr JAENSCH – Some other states are having to now divert composted material, which includes compostable packaging which may include PFAS, to non-food related sources. There are states that are not reversing decisions about single-use plastics, but about their alternatives to it. We might not need to do that if we can start on the right foot from the beginning. Tasmania is a tiny market, in the scheme of things. I’m very keen to keep pushing for a specification regarding composable alternatives to single-use plastics so it is easy to adopt for businesses here. They’re not the only ones in the market calling for those materials, which might be hard to supply if we’re imposing those requirements and the rest of Australia isn’t.
