Australia

Policy Framework

• ▶ National Action Plan
• ▶ Legal Framework
• ▶ Indicators and/or Targets
• ▶ Technical Standards, Guidelines and Methodologies

National Action Plan

■ In preparation
Name:
● National Circular Economy Framework

Brief description:
The Australian Government is developing a National Circular Economy Framework to direct Australia’s circular economy transition. Achieving a circular economy will require coordinated efforts from all levels of government and across all sectors of the economy. This framework will set the strategic context, identify priorities, and guide efforts to drive an integrated, Australia-wide transition to a more circular economy. The Australian Government will continue to consult on the circular economy and development of the framework in 2024.

Name(Year):
● National Waste Policy Action Plan (2019)

Brief description:

The National Waste Policy Action Plan guides Australia’s investment and national efforts to better manage waste and recover resources in support of a circular economy to 2030 and beyond. The plan includes seven ambitious targets that are supported through the delivery of actions by all Australian governments, industry, business and the not-for profit sector.

Two targets in the plan have a specific focus on addressing plastic waste exports (Target 1) and the phase out of problematic and unnecessary plastics (Target 5).

The plan implements Australia’s National Waste Policy, agreed by all Australian Governments in 2018.

Additionally at their meeting on 21 June 2024, Australia’s environment ministers specifically considered the growing challenge of soft plastics, and the slow progress to re-establish in-store collection. Environment ministers agreed a pathway to get soft plastics collected out of landfill will be developed by end of 2024. This will consider different collection approaches across metropolitan, regional and remote locations, and available processing capacity in Australia.

Legal Framework

Name(Year):

• ● Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 (RAWR Act)
• ● National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure 2011
• ● Recycling and Waste Reduction (Export—Waste Plastic) Rules 2021 (Waste Plastic Rules)

Brief description:
The RAWR Act provides a national framework to regulate the export of waste materials, and to manage their environmental, health and safety impacts. Through subordinate legislation, the Act implements the export ban on unprocessed waste plastic, paper, glass, and tyres that was agreed by the Commonwealth, state, and territory governments in March 2020.

[Update to 2023 report paragraph k text] The Australian Government is reforming the regulation of the co-regulatory packaging system to increase sustainable packaging design and recyclability that will support a circular economy for packaging. New Commonwealth regulations will mandate packaging design requirements and set minimum recycled content thresholds to drive end markets for recycled content. The government is also working on reducing packaging waste, including restricting problematic and excessive packaging.

[Update to 2023 report paragraph l text] The reform presents an opportunity to strengthen the domestic regulatory framework and ensure that all packaging all packaging available in Australia is designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed and safely in line with circular economy principles. Increasing the effectiveness of the packaging framework will have consequences for marine plastic litter by increasing product sustainability and plastic collection, recycling and reuse.

The Waste Plastic Rules under the RAWR Act implement the ban on export of unprocessed waste plastic in two phases, through a licensing and declaration scheme. Phase 1 of the export ban was in place from 1 July 2021 until 30 June 2022. This required licence holders to sort plastic into a single polymer or resin prior to export for further processing, recycling, and re-manufacture. On 1 July 2022, phase 2 of the export ban commenced. This required licence holders to further process sorted waste in Australia prior to export, for example into flakes.

The Waste Plastic Rules help ensure that Australia takes responsibility for its plastic waste and promotes the development of our domestic recycling sector and circular economy. By ensuring we only export properly processed waste, we are preventing these materials from being dumped overseas, reducing harm to the environment and human health.

Indicators and/or Targets

■ Yes / ■ In Preparation
■ Plastic recycling:
Indicators:Nil
Targets (if any):

• Data collection framework: The annual Australian Plastic Flows and Fates reporting shows Australia’s plastic consumption, flow, recovery, and recycling from 2000 to 2021 22.

 
Packaging targets
The National Packaging Targets have driven systemic change to how packaging is designed, collected, recovered, and reprocessed, and are increasing recovery rates. National Packaging Target 2 is focused on achieving 70% of plastic packaging being recycled or composted by 2025. The diversity of plastic materials and rapid innovation in materials and formats to deliver functionality creates ongoing challenges for sortation and reprocessing systems.
 
Australasian Recycling Label (ARL)
The Government supports the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) as a world-leading educational tool to help households recycle correctly, including by investing $5 million to assist 20,000 small to medium enterprises improve packaging sustainability and labelling by adopting the ARL to increase plastic recycling rates. In 2024 over 255,000 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) carry the ARL, and in Australia and New Zealand this is a growth of 280% since 2023.
 
Packaging regulatory reform provides an opportunity to address particularly challenging packaging types, such as soft plastics, through improved collection and recycling and product stewardship approaches. At the June 2024 Environment Ministers’ Meeting, Australia’s environment ministers considered the growing challenge of soft plastics, and the slow progress to re-establish in-store collection. Environment ministers agreed a pathway to get soft plastics collected out of landfill will be developed by end of 2024. This will consider different collection approaches across metropolitan, regional and remote locations, and available processing capacity in Australia.

■ Plastic use reduction:
Targets (if any):

• NWPAP Target 5: Phasing out problematic and unnecessary plastics by 2025

Packaging targets
The National Packaging Targets have driven systemic change to how packaging is designed to reduce and phase out problematic and unnecessary single use plastic packaging (Target 4).
Data collection framework: The annual Australian Plastic Flows and Fates reporting shows Australia’s plastic consumption, flow, recovery, and recycling from 2000 to 2021 22.

Technical Standards, Guidelines and Methodologies

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Measures

Measures across Value Chain

Actions for encouraging sustainable / circular product design

Policy actions for encouraging plastic alternatives, recycled materials at production stage.

Steps taken towards restricting microplastics in products.

Reduce single-use plastic (shopping bags, straws etc.) by regulations or voluntary measures

Introduce Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

Improve waste management and recycling system

Promoting plastic waste re-use, recycling and recovery opportunities

Install capturing trap/filter on drainage/river

Conduct clean-up activities in rivers/ wetlands/ beaches/ coasts/ coral reefs/ sea floor, involving local communities involving local communities

Product Specific Measures: ALDFG

Taken/to be taken National Level Action and/or Community Level Action on Clean sea initiatives including ghost net retrieval, ocean-bound plastics etc.

Taken actions for preventing abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) being generated.

Created/creating collection/recycling mechanism for ALDFG

Partnership and Innovation

Boost multi-stakeholder involvement and awareness-raising

Encourage/ Incentivize action by private sector companies to reduce/ sustainably manage their plastic waste.

Encourage public awareness on MPL issues through formal education system and/or curriculum for

Promote innovative solutions through Research & Development

Monitoring, Data Management, Understanding Flow of Plastics/MPL

Conduct Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of plastic products. What are the challenges if LCA is not conducted?

Conduct Material Flow Analysis (MFA) on plastics. What are the challenges if MFA is not conducted?

Conduct monitoring / estimation / scientific research on leakage of plastics/microplastics to the natural environment and/or flow of ocean surface. What are the challenges if these actions are not conducted?

International Collaboration

Participate in international cooperation through international

Support target region by your international cooperation initiatives/projects: South, Central and Southeast Asia

Challenges

■ Recycling system improvement

Specific Challenges:
Limited recycling capacity to manage problematic hard to recycle materials like soft plastics.

While there has been significant recent investment in reprocessing capacity, capacity shortages remain for some materials, including where low volumes make reprocessing unviable.

■ Data collection related to waste in general

Specific Challenges:
States and territories collect data in various formats and parameters, based on their Environment Protection Agency (EPA). Data sharing is limited due to confidentiality and can be difficult to aggregate at a national level.

Progress underway to streamline data collection with the use of reporting standards, and improve data sharing between the various levels of government (Local, State/Territory/Commonwealth)

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Best Practices

■ National level

Private Sector
Description: The Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) is a world-leading consumer education tool which helps households recycle and assists brand owners to design recyclable packaging. The Australian Government has invested $5 million to support small-to-medium enterprises to implement the ARL on their packaging, in turn giving households greater guidance on how to recycle and keeping more plastics out of landfill.

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