All packaging to be recyclable or compostable by 2025

There is a dramatic change coming to Australia over the next seven years.

As of 2025, all packagaing must be 100 percent recyclable, reusuable or compostable.

This was the decision made by the country’s Environment Ministers at their latest meeting.

This is going to be a huge change for all of us, at work and at home.

In some ways this decision has been driven by a restriction by China on the importation of recyclable material from Australia. Around 1.3 million tonnes of our 4 million tonnes of recyclable material is exported for processing in China.

Our amount being exported into China for processing has been dramatically reduced, as we have not been able to consistently meet their maximum contamination rate of one percent. Contamination is the food and other material left on the recyclable material. This contamination costs a lot to remove and so China has placed a massive restriction on the quantity of recyclable materials coming into it’s country for processing from Australia.

As part of this decision, the Ministers agreed that to off set the risks associated with sending much of our recyclable materials overseas, Australia must have businesses and facilities which not only cost effectively process recycled materials but utilise this material to produce goods which can be used and sold here.

So we must ensure at home that we wash or scrape our food containers before we put them into the recyclable bin.

It is the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), which will be leading the way with busineses to meet this sufficient target

Businesses will not only have to ensure that all their packaging meets this requirement but their waste  does as well. It is good that the time frame is seven years as it will most likely take this long to bring about such a fundamental change to packaging in this country. Businesses will have to design and identify new and suitable packaging and then run out whatever they are currently using before starting with their new packaging.

Food waste was also discussed at the meeting and the commitment to halve our food waste by 2030 was confirmed. It was agreed that as consumers are a key part of this reduction, all jurisdictions will align their community education.