Today’s announcement by Coles that it will no longer give out free plastic collectible toys to shoppers is a welcome recognition of their cost in long lasting pollution and consumer concern.

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!

The failure of NSW to have a policy to reduce plastic pollution and waste will be under the spotlight at today’s Parliamentary hearing into the Plastics Reduction Bill.

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 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.

Most States and Territories in Australia having passed laws or proposed laws to reduce their single use plastics. Tasmania is one of the few exceptions.

Boomerang Alliance asked the three major parties about their policies on a container deposit scheme with a return rate above 90%, and their plans to ban certain takeaway single-use plastics.

The good news is that all parties support the introduction of a container refund scheme in 2022, although only the Greens would commit to setting a target for returns above 90% (Worlds Best Practice is 95%)

On curbing reducing problem single use plastics, all parties have promised to act, introduce a long-term plastics reduction plan, with the Greens the only party to specifically commit to introducing bans on problem plastics.

With the Commonwealth and all State/Territory Governments agreeing to phase out problematic and unnecessary single use plastics by 2025 (Meeting of Environment Ministers Communique 15 April 2021), we expect the next Tasmanian Parliament to catch up with the rest of Australia.

We look forward to a container refund scheme being introduced in 2022 AND Tasmania needs to ban problematic single-use plastics such as straws, cutlery and containers.

Commonwealth, State and Territory Environment Ministers have, at last, formally supported the phase-out certain single use, problem plastics. Their list for phase-out includes lightweight plastics bags, oxo-degradable plastics, straws, cutlery and expanded polystyrene packaging and containers and plastic microbeads before 2025. (MEM Communique 15 April 2021)

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