After 2500kms, 10 towns and thousands of collected containers, the successful Big Bottle Tour culminated with special deliveries to the electoral offices of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Leader of the Opposition Matthew Guy - and a PRIMETIME appearance on ABC NEWS. 

Pete Ceglinski, CEO and co-founder, Seabin Project

Disillusioned by the rising level of plastic waste in the waters off Perth, Pete Ceglinski felt compelled to find a solution. And together with close friend Andrew Turton, they hit upon with a simple idea – a rubbish bin for the water.

Constructed from reclaimed polyethylene ocean debris, the Seabin is an effective model – a floating bin fitted with a five-litre mesh bag attached to a pump which sucks in waste and filters out debris-free water.

Placed in a marina, harbour or any waterway with a calm environment, one seabin has the extraordinary capacity to capture 500 kilos of debris annually including 90,000 shopping bags; 50,000 plastic bottles and 35,000 disposable coffee cups.

Additionally, it can catch cigarette butts, plastic particles and microplastics as little as 2mm in size. 

And currently in development, the invention should soon be equipped to trap microfibres. 

A successful Crowdfund campaign at the end of 2015 lead to manufacture and distribution operations in Palma, Mallorca. The Seabin was tested in a pilot trial in the waters off French coastal resort, Le Grande Motte on the Cote D'Azur and after a introductory video went viral with over 10 million views, orders flooded in from locations throughout the Mediterranean before spreading to the rest of Europe and North America.

And now with orders tapped for waterways in Sydney and Melbourne, the Seabin is finally coming home. 

Armed with an ambitious ten-year plan including developments in scientific research with their not-for-profit Share Programme, Ceglinski ultimately envisions a direct assault on open water pollution with eventual designs on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

And while critics have voiced their reservations, branding the model 'gimmicky', the CEO has shrugged off the naysayers. 

"We’re not telling you that the Seabin is going to save the ocean, when it’s not. It’s just going to clean up some of the mess we put in it.”

As Councils and Local Government authorities across Australia consider Waste to Energy as a solution to the current recycling crisis, Boomerang Alliance explains why burning our waste is not the solution to the problem. 

27 April 2018:  Environment groups described today’s Environment Ministers’ meeting as a ‘work in progress’, with Ministers yet to prove that they have adequately responded to the opportunities created by the loss of Chinese markets for our kerbside recycling.

The growing rush to incinerate recyclable materials in response to the current loss of export markets, is entirely the wrong way to go, the Boomerang Alliance of 47 national, state and local groups said today.

Dear Environment Minister,

There has rarely been a more important meeting of environment ministers when it comes to waste and recycling.

Next Friday 27 April 2018, our State and Federal Environment Ministers will meet to discuss crucial issues, including the introduction of a nationwide ban on microbeads.

From personal care to dental hygiene to household cleaning, microbeads are used in an enormous range of products. They slip through our inadequate waste water filtration infrastructure and end up in the ocean. Once there, they act as a sponge for water-borne toxins and are easily mistaken as a food source by unwitting marine life, potentially adding toxins directly to the human food chain.

What’s more, without a national ban, surplus products containing microbeads that have been rejected by other countries could easily make their way to Australia, as manufacturers try to cut their losses. We can’t afford to let Australia become a potential dumping ground for these billions of pieces of microplastic.

Right now, the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, France, Sweden, Taiwan, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands have or will soon introduce bans on microbeads. Australia has no plans to do the same.

Instead the Commonwealth Government is relying on a voluntary phase out but only a national ban will eliminate the problem once and for all.

We need to put the pressure on. We need to protect marine wildlife, we need to protect the ocean. We need to protect our health.

We have only days to take action, please help us by contacting our state environment ministers and making your voice heard.

After just two months, the NSW container deposit scheme is already collecting over 1.5 million containers a day. As the rest of Australia follows suit in coming months, Victoria will soon be the only mainland state without a 10 cents container refund scheme.

After years of relying on China to process our plastic rubbish into something useable, the new Chinese National Sword ban is set to have devastating effects on Australia's waste problem if nothing is done.

The introduction of the comingled waste bin has always been an issue, but in Australia we took the lazy way out – ‘she’ll be right’. In the last few weeks I’ve been to crisis meetings with all stakeholders and the fear is palpable. If China won’t take our plastic waste for recycling because it is contaminated in our bins, what will we do with it? More landfill and incineration? Right now is not time for knee-jerk reactions and the glacial processes for better product stewardship, that have so far characterised waste policy development.

Container Deposit Schemes (CDS) operate or are about to be introduced in most States and Territories in Australia. South Australia has had a scheme in place since 1977, and only two states, Victoria and Tasmania, are yet to introduce a scheme. With Victoria losing the China market for its contaminated recyclate and needing to consider a CDS which produces clean material - will Tasmania be the last State to act?