Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley was joined by Sandra Martinez from Nestle Oceania, Alexander Spring, Raphael Geminder, Chairman at Pact Group Holdings, Warren Entsch, Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef, Molly Steer, Scarlett Rosshandler, Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management Trevor Evans MP, McDonald’s Australia supply chain and sustainability director Kylie Freeland in the Mural Hall at Parliament House.
The Minister opened by saying “The National Plastics summit is off to a terrific start. I am joined by representatives of the future, Molly Steer carefully supervised by Great Barrier Reef envoy Warren Entsch. Warren thank you for bring Molly’s determination to take plastic out of the ocean, a determination you share”.
“The message for today is to step up as industries, as governments, as consumers, as students.”
Minister Ley also announced the following in a media release.
I am delighted to announce that Pact Group will partner with government and industry to invest in existing and new facilities for sustainable packaging, reuse and recycling initiatives over the next five years as well as investing further in innovation, technology and research to use more recycled content.
As a result, Pact will have 30 per cent recycled content across its product portfolio by 2025 and keep nearly two billion plastic containers out of landfill.
Pact’s announcement at the National Plastics Summit today follows announcements from major brands McDonald’s and Nestlé, with McDonald’s committing to phase out plastic cutlery by the end of 2020, removing 585 tonnes of plastic waste per annum.
This adds to McDonald’s previous commitment to phase out 500 million straws every year and takes the total annual plastic reduction to 860 tonnes.
Nestlé is partnering with waste management company IQ Renew in a trial that will see soft plastics collected from over 100,000 homes, diverting tonnes of soft plastic otherwise headed for landfill.
Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management, Trevor Evans, said today’s summit was another important step in working with industry to drive long-term practical outcomes such as increasing Australia’s recycling rates and domestic reprocessing capabilities.
“We are looking towards fundamentally changing the way we think about and manage our waste, and creating new markets for recycled products,” Mr Evans said.
“This transformation towards a circular economy will both create jobs and help our environment”.
Here is the audio from the doorstop along with photos taken at the event.
More photos from the event can be viewed at the Keating Media photo site.
Video Transcript is below.
[Minister Sussan Ley:] yeah well the national plastic summit is off to a terrific start I’m joined by representatives of the future Molly steer carefully supervised by Great Barrier Reef envoy Warren Entsch. Warren thank you for bringing Molly’s determination to take plastic out of the oceans a determination you share to Parliament House. Scarlet’s from Melbourne and Alexander is from Sydney and we’ve also got representative industry here. Pact group, McDonald’s and Nestle let’s say and the reason they’re here is because pledges have already been made and the message for today is to step up as industries as government’s as consumers as students who are directing some of their families about what they need to do in their own recycling bins at their own curb-side. But more importantly the strategic view of how we get this right. How we tackle the challenge of plastic and we turn something that we’re picking up yesterday in Clean Up Australia. Not something to put in landfill or a little bin, nor a hole in the ground but something that you create a resource with that becomes a product that is demanded for an end to end Australian designed plastic processing solution. So enough from me I’m going to invite Raphael from PACT Group to talk about his announcement we’ll do a bit of a soft shoe shuffle here at the mics and then we might bring the other companies in but over to you Raph.
[Raphael Geminder:] Thank You Minister Ley. Yeah. So Australians as you will know are some of the best recyclers in the world and they deserve a circular economy that ensures recyclables are converted into value-added products. I’m delighted to announce PACT Groups commitment to lead the circular economy through significant investment in existing and new facilities over the next five years. We will be working with government and like-minded partners to invest five hundred million dollars in the circular economy by 2025. It’s only by bringing these parties together to invest in infrastructure that allows us to take responsibility and solve our current waste crisis. Our strategy to lead the circular economy through investment in our packaging reuse infrastructure and recycling businesses is critical as these activities provide a home for the majority of plastics that are recycled. We are also investing in further technology and material science to ensure increased inclusion of recycled content. We are proud to act and encourage others to join us. Australia deserves a real class circular economy thank you.
[Minister Ley:] That’s fantastic it’s um five hundred million dollars and it will go a long way and PACT Groups understanding, deep understanding over 30 years of recycling in this country is going to be welcomed as we move forward. I’m now going to ask assistant minister Trevor Evans to introduce Nestlé and we’ll hear from them and Trevor has been working very closely on the detail of the policy that we are supporting when it comes to the federal government’s contribution to that end-to-end recycling and building manufacturing capability and capacity. Over to you Trevor.
[Assistant Minister Evans:] Thank You Minister, thank you all for joining us here today as is demonstrated by so many people coming together with such great announcements and pledges to make everybody has a role to play when it comes to tackling the recycling and waste reduction challenges in front of us. That’s why we’re brought so many people here together in Canberra, so many experts and leaders on the topic of plastics to really share their knowledge and try to coordinate their efforts into the future. Now the federal government can do a number of things as the Prime Minister recognised this morning we can bring a level of national leadership to this issue which will elevate our these issues in the national consciousness. We can coordinate the efforts of industry and environment groups and local government and States and we can set policies and extend the planning horizon by setting targets into the future for all of us to meet. But what we can’t do is kid ourselves that a federal government in Canberra has all of the answers.
The answers are held by the experts and the leaders, people in industry, people in communities and by bringing them all together they bring the product by product, waste stream by waste stream, area by area solutions that we’re going to need going forwards if we’re really to solve these big challenges. It’s been our huge privilege to help support through our policies the work of some great organisations who are doing some amazing things and as I introduce Sandra Nestlé to step up to the table and talk about some of the great work they’re doing. I’ll just talked a little bit about how the government is supporting things like the Australasian recycling label and our national packaging targets so that over time consumers, customers, voters all around Australia can have confidence that the things that they’re buying and the decisions they’re making in terms of which bin they put things in is leading to a more sustainable future. Welcome to the microphone Sandra.
[Sandra Martinez:] Thank you, thank you very much. As one of the largest food companies here in Australia we are aware and we understand that making or packaging 100% recyclable is just not enough. We need to work together and collaborate with other manufacturers other brand owners. With suppliers, with waste management organisations with the community and with the government to find solutions that will close the loop of recycling. In this sense I am very proud to announce today that we are in a partnership with IQ Renew to run a trial to collect soft plastics from more than this important? Soft plastics is probably the one kind of plastic that is the least recycled in Australia and in the world. Less than 1% of the soft plastics gets recycled. This is just unacceptable. So we are hoping that with this trial we will understand better many of the dynamics of how people collect their soft plastics and how can we really dramatically increase the collection of soft plastics. This will not only divert soft plastics from landfill but will be the first step in the circular economy of soft plastics because once the soft plastic is collected it, it will be converted in something else and hopefully again in a recycled food grade soft plastic that we can use again to manufacture a product. Thank you.
[Minister Ley:] Thanks, thanks so much Sandra. Now Coralee is here from McDonalds and Coralee I’d love you to step. Kylie I’d love you to step up and talk about the announcement that some of us read about this morning and it’s pretty exciting when it comes to taking plastic out of our environment.
[Kylie Freeland:] Thank you very much. McDonald’s is very proud to continue to use our scale to make sure that we can lead in the area and as you’re aware last year we did commit to removing the plastic straw by the end of the year in our businesses. The pacts that we have made today is in addition to this to actually remove all of our plastic cutlery in the restaurants as well. This is going to remove 540 tons of single-use plastic out of the system and we’re very proud to make this commitment today and our ongoing commitment to this area.
[Minister Ley:] Thank you we’ve saved the best till lastl Do you think I’m talking about the children but I’m actually talking about Entchy. Warren would you like to introduce Molly, Scarlett and Alexander. and
[Warren Entsch MP:] thank you.
[Minister Ley:]Love you all to speak.
[Warren Entsch MP:] Thank you very much indeed minister and we’ve heard we’ve heard today about government their commitment and what their role in dealing with this particular challenge. We’ve heard about from our chief scientists what science can do in helping us to resolve this issue and to deal with this issue and of course we’ve had some fabulous announcements here from industry. All of these three are absolutely critical when we’re dealing with this challenge. However the most important one, the most important person in dealing with this is young people like Alexander, like Molly, like Scarlett and every single one of you standing here today because what drives the change is you as consumers. What you choose to buy and what you choose to reject and it’s young people like this, like Scarlett, like Molly like Alexander that is really raising the stakes and really challenging government, science and Industry and it’s what they choose to buy and what they influence other people to buy and to reject is really what’s going to end up as being the absolute success of where we headed in this particular one. So I say thank you to three of you young people representing a whole myriad of young people right across the country and I as leaders in your own community and somebody here in Molly who I have to say was her advocacy and her inspiration that actually got me involved in this area I’d say thank you to you because it’s through your leadership through your voices that we’re going to see the most significant change. So handed over to you girl.
[Molly Steer:] I’m so happy about all the pledges that everybody’s been making today and I’m so glad that everybody’s listening and agreeing that we have to do something and it’s if any time we should start it should be now.
[Minister Ley:] that was it beautifully. Ok questions for our fabulous industry leaders or anyone
[Minister Ley:] Well PACT has described what they will do we’re all playing our part what we have said is that we will support investments that are made by state governments and made by industry that will allow the facilities and the processing plants and the real practical recycling on the ground to take place. Those are conversations I’m having with state ministers right now in the lead up to the reaffirming of our waste export ban by COAG in March. So with the export ban transitioning in over time we will be building the processing capacity behind it that means that we can genuinely start a circular end to end Australian economy in recycling. Absolutely and we’re seeing investment now. The Prime Minister mentioned an investment on the Victorians at New South Wales border which will process up to 28,000 tons of plastic and that was mentioned by PACT as one of the partners. So we’re already seeing the types of investment following the announcement of our waste export ban that are building the recycling capacity and we’re seeing new clean streams of waste coming on stream through container deposit schemes and other initiatives and some of our work will be about upgrading the material recycling facility so that you actually get the best possible raw material product coming out of that facility to feed into for example a plastic pelletizing plant….. …. it’s a good question and certainly waste and recycling haven’t traditionally been a Commonwealth Government areas of Public Policy that’s because we see recycling take place at state government level on your curb side with your bin collection and then waste levies are collected by state governments and we’d like to get a few more of those levies back out of the state government Treasuries and on the ground in practical recycling facilities and that’s starting to happen. So it has taken I believe national leadership to bring environment ministers together, to bring state governments together to support the Prime Minister’s waste export ban. To agree to the timelines that it’s phased in under but then for all of us to collaborate work together make the investment make the connections have industry step up and I thank them for that because this is not something that governments do, this is something that governments partner with industry. It is industry that invests has skin in the game understands the marketplace and, and is leading in front of their consumers their shareholders and their clients who are also demanding this because the point Warren Entsch made is a really good one.
It is that it’s consumers who choose, consumers who agree that it’s okay to have a ban on single-use plastic bags in their supermarket but they don’t want to use helium balloons at children’s birthday parties that small pieces of plastic are ingested by marine wildlife and caused problems. We’ve all heard of there being more plastic than fish in the ocean by date it’s expected that 99% of seabirds will have ingested plastic. Now these are these are facts that our students and all of us should take take very seriously to heart and that’s part of the action that we’re undertaking… …well again the announcement this morning is a recycling plastic pelletising plant that is near my hometown of Albury and it will employ 30 people when it’s up and running and a lot more during its construction. It will take the plastic from all over the East Coast in theory and it will be balanced by other similar facilities. Now they’re rural and regional jobs over nine jobs for every real generator of economic activity for rural and regional Australia. One that we really value.
But similarly we’ve got Stephen Dawson West Australian Environment Minister here at the summit today and he’s talked to me about solutions for remote communities. Mobile solutions that provide for example jobs in indigenous communities and again treat the plastic that we’re seeing in our environment as a resource to be used and a value to add… We’re not doing this by ad-hoc legislation or regulation that may well add costs to consumers we’re very conscious of consumer costs and people who live on fixed incomes who aren’t automatically going to be able to pay for levies that are loaded on somewhere in the supply chain for waste and plastic. But in spite of that I don’t believe such a solution would work. When we look at packaging and plastics so much of it comes from overseas. It comes from online shopping. We don’t have the ability to inspect everything at the border and say well you know your electrical equipment has got too much polystyrene wrapped around it or too much plastic wrapping plastic. None of us likes it we we want consumers to say we choose not to purchase with this much packaging but also what the packaging covenant is. It’s industry saying we’ll work together and we’ll agree not to use this much plastic packaging. Polystyrene is one of the nastiest products in the environment it’s being replaced by wood shavings by something far more fiber based and environmentally friendly.
Doesn’t need levies to do that we’re bringing everyone with us and it is happening. Today is about industry participating in a collaborative effort about investment for the new recycling economy and the days just beginning the sessions are breaking out now and I’m sure by the end of today there’ll be some more announcements made. I certainly am conscious as someone who lives in rural and regional Australia about the pressures on land and land care and before I became really busy in Parliament I was secretary of my local Land Care Group. I think it’s reasonably well known that I participate in community cleanups that like everyone I talk about recycling and and part of that educational opportunity and I support all my wonderful schools.
Because the changing of the conversation is one that happens very much from school level. I don’t think anyone can have a conversation with students like the ones that are here today and we’ve got 20 amazing individuals like the three you’ve met this morning, without having a sense this is the moment, this is important this is the time when we need to take action across all sectors of society on plastic but it really is students who are leading the way so I’ve invited Portia from the small town of Corowa in my electorate. I went to her school and they have a no rubbish policy. So yeah sure you bring things that you need to put in a in a rubbish bin when you come to school but you take them home in your bag.
Now that starts as the students say to me to educate parents. There’s no bins at school. No because we want a zero waste school. Because we’re in regional and rural Australia we’ve got a lot of worm farms, we’ve got a lot of vegetable gardens. So students are learning about organic waste and composting in the soil. They’re learning about how you recycle everything that you’ve grow in the ground and they’re learning very much about where their food comes from. So they all say that the messages that they would like us to hear are messages that when they talk to the adults in their world they often haven’t heard. thank you.
[Sandra Martinez:] okay listened as I as I mentioned before. We as an industry and we specifically as Nestlé have the responsibility to lead the way. We are committed to 100% recyclable packaging / usable packaging by 2025. But not only that we also are committed to reduce the use of virgin plastic by a third. The big challenge that we have with this last commitment is that currently the offer of food-grade recycled plastic packaging is not available. It’s not available in the amounts that we need and that’s why it’s so important the announcement that we made today about making sure that we make this first step to collect soft plastics first and then make it into a valuable resource that will eventually go into the circular economy and we’ll be using our factories as as a chocolate wrapper for example right. We have a lot to do we have a lot to add to the society. We are also committed to make sure that we help to educate consumers how to best sort their waste and that well that’s why we also committed to make sure that we put the Australasian recycling label in all of our packaging for all of the products that we manufacture locally because that’s what we control and it’s important if you see for example in a in a tin of of baby food right you will find a three different recycle sorry Australasian labels. One for the team because what it was in one bin one for the lid because what if it was in another one right and that is that is the contribution that we are we are putting here to help get the the issue of of plastic waste and of packaging waste in general a thing of the past. End
