The Boomerang Alliance has long lamented the problems many of our Pacific and Asian neighbours have with ocean plastic pollution. Some of these plastic problems come from domestic use but the rest are plastics washed ashore from international waters. This is a particularly dire problem in many Asian locations. Excessive single use packaging-some for good health and safety reasons -has created a pollution legacy that we in Australia would find hard to accept.

The essential problem has been in allowing packaging producers to market their products without needing to take responsibility for their products' waste. In many countries in our region there is simply no adequate facilities to manage those plastic wastes, and so plastic litter and waste remains a perpetual and growing challenge.

One outcome from the Global Plastics Treaty currently being negotiated would be to get obligations from the plastic industry to both reduce unnecessary and disposable plastics, and to take responsibility for the recovery of their products after use. This is a notion the global industry is opposing but one that could deliver a solution for our neighbours.

In our region we have advocated that an effective contribution that the Australian Government could make would be to include funding for waste infrastructure as a standing item in foreign aid support. Funding for both climate adaptation and plastic pollution can make a difference and should be a specific part of any aid budget.

With Australia now having container refund schemes in every State and Territory-Tasmania's scheme started this month- expanding into the Pacific could be a next step. Reloop Pacific have just released a report- Littered with Evidence, Proof that deposit return schemes work. The report concludes that schemes in Europe, North America and Australia have significantly reduced container litter and waste. Reloop estimate that deposit schemes cut litter by 50% on average, with many individual schemes achieving 70% or more.

Reducing litter not only reduces marine and terrestrial plastic and container pollution, it also reduces the often hidden costs of litter clean ups that councils and community groups are currently bearing.

On a recent visit to the Cook Islands  we noted that households and communities were collecting plastic and glass drink containers and then shipping these to New Zealand for recycling. A container refund scheme on the Cook Islands or any similar Pacific location, would result in establishing collection and recycling facilities in-situ and providing communities with a financial benefit from collecting used cans and bottles for a refund. With facilities in place, other problem packaging could be addressed in future.

There are simple and meaningful steps that can be taken to solve ocean plastic pollution problems.

Plastic debris on Indonesian beach

Communities can collect the debris-but where to take this for recycling?