Did you know we use over 10 million plastic straws every day. Most are used for about 15 minutes and then thrown away either as waste or litter.
The Queensland Government has announced plans to introduce legislation to phase out certain plastic products and released a 'regulatory impact statement' (RIS) for public review. In the first stage of the phase-out, plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery and plates would not be allowed to be supplied to the public from July 2021. The phase-out may include, after further analysis, coffee cups, other plastics and heavyweight plastic bags.
You can see the RIS and comment at:
https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/pollution/management/waste/recovery/reduction/plastic-pollution/reducing-plastic. There is a short survey you can take on-line, or use the submission below - closing date 15 April 2020.
The government is assessing four choices to eliminate these plastic products - (1) Maintain the status quo (2) Ban these products from use (3) Implement a state-wide education campaign (4) Provide more litter collection.
Boomerang Alliance says there is only one option - Ban these products (2). There are available and preferred options for all of them, and, as the plastic bag ban has shown, litter will be drastically reduced. In the first year of the lightweight plastic bag ban, plastic bag litter reduced by 70%.
Did you know that a recent international IPSOS ‘Throwaway World’ poll on attitudes to single use plastics found that 69% of Australians favoured a ban on single use plastics, and as soon as possible.
Email your submission (template below) to: [email protected]
or post to:
Single Use Plastic Consultation
Department of Environment and Science
Office of Resource Recovery
PO Box 2454
BRISBANE 4001
SUBMISSION TEMPLATE
I support a Queensland ban on plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery and plates, with coffee cups, other plastic items and heavyweight shopping bags added as soon as possible (taking into account the needs of people with a disability). This is the most effective way to reduce plastic litter and reduce the terrible impact on wildlife from plastic pollution.
There are preferred alternatives to all these products that include not using them or having reusable products instead. If the Government plans to allow compostable alternatives, these should be required to meet the Australian compost standards for this type of packaging (AS 4736-commercial AS 5810-home).
The governments has NOT included polystyrene cups or polystyrene containers such as clam shells in the first stage of the phase-out. These polystyrene items should be included now. They are a particularly bad litter problem, have plenty of alternatives and we note that polystyrene products are included in similar proposed bans in South Australia and the ACT.
Your name and address (and signature if posting)