For all media enquiries and interview requests:
Email: [email protected]
Call: +61 (0)2 9211 5022

Jeff Angel – Director

Jeff is famous for both his uncompromising integrity and his ability to reconcile people and interest groups with no apparent common ground for the good of us all. He's also been a favoured commentator on TV radio and in print for decades. Softly spoken, diplomatic and scrupulous, he is a dogged and fearless campaigner. Jeff has forged alliances between countless factions in government, industry, business, and community, producing one constructive outcome for the environment after the other, since becoming involved in the campaign to protect the rainforests 36 years ago when he was at university studying Economics.  Jeff’s achievements range from pushing policy and legislation to protect clean air, restore urban rivers, conserve our coasts, wetlands and wilderness, combat climate change, reform business and government to embrace environmental sustainability, prevent broad-scale land clearing, save our common green spaces, and more. He is also Executive Director of the Total Environment Centre. Jeff published 'Green is Good' (ABC Books) in 2008 and is a regular and highly respected media commentator. Jeff has been awarded an Order of Australia and Centenary Medal.

Areas of expertise: waste and recycling, plastic pollution, plastic regulations

Toby Hutcheon - Campaign Manager

Toby has worked on environmental issues for 30 years. He started at Greenpeace on the Nuclear Free Seas campaign, dividing his time between the office and the bows of nuclear warships. He was Greenpeace Australia’s first Action Coordinator, managed the Communications Division, and helped initiate the 'green' Sydney Olympics. He moved to Europe in 1996, working on the Chernobyl Campaign for Greenpeace in Moscow.

Toby was the Executive Director of the Qld Conservation Council from 2004-2014, and has tertiary qualifications in education, marketing and journalism. As our Campaigns Manager, he creates the strategies and actions to run our successful campaigns, and works with governments on policy. He believes that we can all make a difference.

Areas of expertise: waste and recycling, plastic pollution, plastic regulations, plastic free places

Kellie Lindsay - Program Manager Plastic Free Places

Kellie oversees the management of the Plastic Free Places program and helps develop the systems and partnerships that drive it. She obtained a business degree before pursuing an environmental career, further obtaining a Master's in Environmental Management. She has managed the program since its inception in late 2016, and prior to this, helped implement successful campaigns for a container refund scheme and plastic bag ban in Qld.

'The key to the success of this program has been direct engagement with our members and the behind the scenes work we do to make it easy for them to switch. We work to support them, to make it straight-forward, and deliver real solutions to these businesses'.

Areas of expertise: single use plastics

Lisa Wriley - Campaigner

Lisa has a gift for working with communities, and extensive experience as an educator in schools. She is particularly sympathetic towards younger students having raised two boys of her own, Lisa can wrangle any age group.

She loves being creative, animating the campaigns with characters and running stalls to engage with the community. Lisa can strike up a conversation with anyone from any walk of life. Her passion for the environment and deep knowledge of waste and recycling issues after more than ten years of campaigning, coupled with a warm and affable manner make her one of the most effective communicators on our team.

With her background in Education for Sustainability, Lisa also helps schools to set up worm tubs for their organic waste, teaches composting at Kariong Eco Garden, and supports waste reduction strategies at Central Coast schools.

Areas of expertise: Sustainability, waste management and recycling, creative ways to communicate campaigns

In an eventful weekend for plastic pollution when two states announced bans on single use items - WA jumped ahead of the pack.

The release of the Plastics and Waste Policies will move the state into a new era of pollution reduction and recycling.

What has South Australia, Queensland, the ACT, Western Australia and Victoria done – that NSW hasn’t? Ban single use plastic items that are polluting our environment and killing marine life. We haven’t even banned lightweight plastic bags when every other state and territory took action years ago!

Major supermarket chains and multinational brands are among more than 60 organisations to sign up to a long-awaited pact to reduce plastic waste across Australia and the region.

The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) is launching the ANZPAC Plastic Pact today, a collaborative collaborative solution that brings together key players behind a shared vision of a circular economy for plastic, where plastic never becomes waste or pollution. It aims to share knowledge, investment and industry led innovation to implement solutions tailored to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands region.

NSW regulation requires that plastic “L” (Learner) and “P” (Provisional) plates be on the exterior of the vehicle only. These plastic plates can often be seen in NSW on the roadside and in the gutters as they too easily fall off cars and wash down the stormwater drains, becoming plastic pollution.

Boomerang Alliance is calling on the NSW government to change the current requirement to allow the Learner and Provisional plates to be displayed inside the vehicle.

Queensland offers a downloadable template; SA sells 'see-through plates' for inside the car window; ACT, WA, Tasmania and Victoria simply require: "You must display L-plates so they are clearly visible from the front and back of the car you are driving." Magnetic plates, plate display brackets and plate clips are also available in most states and territories.

This is an easily preventable form of plastic pollution - and with your support, we look forward to NSW taking action to prevent it.

THESE ARE ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TO LET THE GOVERNMENT KNOW THAT WE WANT THIS PLASTIC POLLUTION STOPPED! 

1. SIGN OUR PETITION

Boomerang Alliance is calling on the NSW government to change the current requirement to allow the Learner and Provisional plates to be displayed inside the vehicle. Please sign our Change.org petition.

2. POST-A-PLATE

We encourage you to send any "L" or "P" driver plates that you find to Minister for Customer Service The Hon. Victor Dominello MP, Minister for Transport and Roads The Hon. Andrew Constance MP or Minister for Energy and Environment The Hon. Matt Kean MP, with a note asking for a change in the law that currently requires them to be on the exterior of the vehicle. Below are a couple of sample notes to give you an idea of what to write.

Wrap the plates in scrap paper, address them, stick on a stamp and send them to:

The Hon. Victor Dominello, MP
Minister for Customer Service, NSW Government
GPO Box 5341, SYDNEY NSW 2001

The Hon. Matt Kean, MP
Minister for Energy and Environment, NSW Government
GPO Box 5341, SYDNEY NSW 2001

The Hon. Andrew Constance, MP
Minister for Transport and Roads, NSW Government
GPO Box 5341, SYDNEY NSW 2001

Sample note 1

Dear Minister Dominello,

Freebie plastic "L" and "P" plates given out at Service NSW locations are creating plastic pollution as they regularly fall off vehicles, onto the road and wash into stormwater drains. Please change the law that requires them to be on the exterior of the vehicle (other states eg. SA allow internal "see through" versions). We can do better than this.

Kind regards,
(name)

(don't forget to add your return address so that the minister can write back to you)

Sample note 2

Dear Minister Matt Kean,

I am sick of seeing lost "L" and "P" plates on the road. They break into lots of little pieces of plastic and wash down the stormwater drains. Please RE-THINK the law that requires them to be on the exterior of the vehicle and allow them to be displayed inside the vehicle. I will keep posting them to you until we get something better in NSW.

Look forward to hearing of a change.

Kind regards,
(name)

(don't forget to add your return address so that the minister can write back to you)

Information on Learner and Provisional plates display in other states

The Victorian Government’s decision on how the state’s container deposit system (CDS) will operate is a good and wise decision, the Boomerang Alliance of 53 NGOs said today.

"We congratulate the government for listening to the community and rejecting the disinformation campaign by the big bottlers, Coke and Lion, their lobby group VicRecyle and Planet Ark. Everyone should now move on and work together on the key metrics like recycling targets, involvement of charities and the most accessible collection points for consumers to get their 10c refunds,’’ said Jeff Angel, Director of the Alliance.

"Our research into the various types of schemes here in Australia and overseas shows that the chosen "split responsibility" model (Coordinator and Network Operators) is best practise. It sets up the right allocation of responsibilities so that the system can grow, be accountable, accessible and deliver multiple benefits for decades. It’s based on the NSW approach where there has been very significant involvement of charities and small businesses; billions of drink containers returned; and very accessible refund points," Mr Angel said.

"The Boomerang Alliance has been campaigning for Australia to be entirely covered by container deposit schemes and today’s announcement fully achieves this. In fact Australia is the first continent on the planet to do this. There will be remarkable environmental, employment, recycling and charity benefits."

Whilst key design elements and collection arrangements are still to be worked out, the announced scheme means that:

• Responsibility for the scheme is split between the government, the beverage industry and a container collection network (still to be determined)
• Victorians will be able to redeem a 10 cent refund on every plastic, glass or aluminium drink container from 2023
• Container litter will be slashed and recycling significantly increased
• Community organisations will be able to fundraise by collecting cans and bottles

The NSW government has just released a discussion paper Cleaning Up Our Act: Redirecting the Future Plastics in NSW. The paper seeks public views on what action NSW should be doing to address plastic pollution in the State. 

Did you know that 75% of marine debris found around the coastline of Australia is plastic, and comes from local land-based sources?