Every day more than 15,000 single-use coffee cups are thrown away on the Mornington Peninsula (VIC) alone. Single-use takeaway packaging is only used for a few minutes before it tends to end up as litter or landfill, even when it’s compostable.

That’s why Boomerang Alliance is urging residents and visitors to the Peninsula to make the switch to reusable cups, water bottles and bags this summer.

"Simple switches have a big impact," said Birte Moliere from Plastic Free Places, a program managed by Boomerang Alliance and funded by Mornington Peninsula Shire. "The response from the community has been overwhelming with residents and visitors alike eager to support the reuse revolution."

With the support of Plastic Free Places, many Peninsula businesses have responded to community concern over litter by switching from single-use cups to reusables. A new directory of those that actively encourage and incentivise customers to use reusables is being created at www.wastewisepeninsula.org; 

"As a father of two young boys, litter-free beaches are very close to my heart," said Peninsula resident Jack. "It only takes a few simple changes to get there."

A Peninsula café owner and Plastic Free Places member said: "I don’t want the packaging that I use in my business to outlive me."

MARK YOUR DIARIES: CELEBRATE BYO CUP DAY WITH COMMONFOLK & HOME GROUND

On BYO Cup Day, local venues are celebrating the reuse revolution and aim to serve 100% of coffees in reusables.

JOIN US FOR BYO CUP DAY LAUNCH:

• FRI 08 December at COMMONFOLK Mornington – 16 Progress Street, Mornington
• SAT 09 December at HOME GROUND Mornington – 22 Robertson Drive, Mornington

DINE IN, BYO OR BORROW TO WIN: Plastic Free Places is running a competition for you to win a beautiful ceramic cup by Peninsula artist Natalie Heriot. To enter, share a photo with a reusable cup and tag @wastewisepeninsula on Facebook or Instagram or submit a photo with your cup.

BYO CUP TO SUPPORT YOUTH AT RISK.

Did you know, each single use cup costs our local venues up to 50c in packaging? When you bring your own cup to HOME GROUND in Mornington, the money saved in packaging supports youth at risk.

Whether it’s lack of public transport, inadequate training or low self belief, the challenge of finding a good job for young locals is very real. HOME GROUND bridges these gaps and provides training & employment pathways for young people at risk.

They also have a big focus on limiting their footprint and have officially joined the Plastic Free Places program with Boomerang Alliance. You can support their mission by making One.Change. When you bring your own cup to this venue the money saved in packaging goes straight back into supporting at risk youth.

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If your local café carries the environmental torch, but still uses single-use cups (let’s face it, it’s so hard for cafes to ditch the disposable cup when our societal appetite for convenience is at an all-time high), we can help them.

And we’d like YOU to let them know that.

Because cafes listen to their customers!

Our project in Sydney needs 100 cafes who want to make a difference, but don’t know where to start. We’ll work closely with them to supercharge their use of reusables, document their journey, and showcase their achievements.

It’s important because these businesses will be at the forefront of change, helping to shape future directions on single-use in NSW.

And we’d like you to tell them of this great new project. We have a variety of reusable options they can consider, and we'll help them implement these, and measure their results. We'll then promote them so they can inspire the community by what they've achieved.

All the information they (and you) need is at www.plasticfreeplaces.org/sydney-join.

Or, tag them in one of our Instagram posts @reuseprojectsydney.

Sydney – let’s go next level sustainable!

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On 1 November, Victoria became the seventh and second last State to introduce a cash for containers scheme. It means that Victorians can now claim a refund on eligible containers returned for recycling. Our campaign to have a container refund scheme in every state is almost complete.

Victoria is suffering from initial implementation problems exacerbated by having three Network Operators, offering different levels of convenience to get refunds. The over-the-counter refund points are particularly problematic. It remains to be seen how quickly these issues can be overcome.

On the same day, Queensland became the first State to accept wine and spirit bottles for a refund. This was a move supported by environment groups, retail associations, the waste industry and the beverage industry. We now look forward to other states and territories following suit.

The fact is that container deposit or refund schemes work well, so it makes sense to expand on the number of items that could be collected. Wine and spirit bottles are the first action. In the future, items such as other glass jars, larger fruit juice, plain milk, non-beverage and reusable containers could also be included. Our aim is to drive up the return rates to above 90%.

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The Plastic Free Places project started as a means to help cafes eliminate and reduce problem single use plastics. We will continue to do this. However, we also encourage cafes to switch to reusable alternatives where they could. We now want to ramp up that agenda.

We’re on a mission to make reusables the ONLY option.We’re doing some amazing things across the country to mobilise support for the reusables movement. These include:

• A video case study of RAC Arena in Perth, telling the story of their reusable cup system.
  
  
• A guide to help businesses on how to talk to their customers about reusables.
  
  
• Our first reusable community in Port Douglas (Qld). We’re setting up a reuse swap system for coffee cups between hotels and local cafes, as well as expanding the local water reuse networks. Supported by the Qld State Government and Douglas Shire Council, it’s due to launch in March.
  
  
• A big behaviour change project in the Qld Government’s Department of Environment and Science building in Brisbane to introduce a reusable system that also connects in with the local cafés to create a new reusable workplace culture. We're currently collecting all the baseline data to launch the on-ground component in February.
  
  
• A smaller scale version for the office in the Tasmanian Government’s Lands Building in Hobart.

What can you do to help?

BYO and please actively support businesses trying to do the right thing! They often tell us they feel their efforts are not noticed by their customers, though people are quick to complain. Let’s even this out and let our locals know we appreciate their efforts. It makes a difference.

See our Plastic Free Places website for more information on our projects.

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Supermarkets in Australia are a $130 billion industry and responsible for supplying the majority of household plastic packaging. The Australian Marine Conservation Society and the Boomerang Alliance have audited plastic use in our supermarkets and released a first audit on their performance.

We used publicly available data and then followed up with specific questions directly to the supermarkets. We focussed on the big three (Woolworths, Coles and ALDI) with a watching brief on Metcash (IGA/Foodland).

Based on our assessments ALDI leads the way in the Australian market, achieving the highest score in 2023. We note that all our supermarkets still have a long way to go before they are any way near world's best practice, something we think should be the goal.

A big thank you to all our citizen investigators for conducting their own surveys. The data was captured in the report. We plan for this to be an annual audit.

KEY FINDINGS

• Most supermarkets are not transparent about their plastic footprint.
  
  
• Reuse and refill systems need to be scaled up urgently, to provide consumers with cost comparative options without unnecessary plastic packaging
  
  
• Leading supermarkets are not prioritising removal of plastic, over-relying on false solutions such as 'lightweighting' - making packaging lighter to claim plastic reductions.
  
  
• Loose fresh produce is frequently more expensive than plastic-packed produce, pushing consumers towards unnecessary plastic packaging, and penalises those who try to reduce their plastic consumption in a cost-of-living crisis.
  
  
• Supplier packaging guidelines are rarely enforced, allowing suppliers to use whatever packaging option is cheapest or easiest to print marketing material onto.
  
  
• Recycling and recycled content was the worst performing area of all assessed categories. In spite of the message coming from Australian supermarkets, little real progress has been made on increasing the recycled content in plastic packaging, diminishing recycling efforts and the vision of creating a circular economy for plastics in Australia.

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The Boomerang Alliance has released its Reuse report calling for greater focus on reusable cups and containers for takeaway. In May 2023 the UN (Turning off the Tap) calculated that with reuse, plastic pollution can be slashed by 30% by 2040. The report supported refillable bottles, bulk dispensers, deposit return schemes and packaging take back.

Our report puts focus on hot beverage cups and lids and food containers used in cafes and for takeaway and examines proven systems. This is a good place to start by changing habits away from home where waste and litter is more likely.

We outlined the opportunities for reuse and the places that could make some immediate changes. These include offices, at stadiums and events, in cafes, restaurants and food courts, at supermarkets and in other 'controlled environments' such as transport services (planes, trains and ferries). The container refund schemes now active around the country should also be able to collect reusable containers as they do in Germany.

The report calls on more action by governments. Our view is that all disposable cups and food containers should be phased out. To help that transition, governments should be banning the use of disposable cups and containers for dine-in; all takeaway outlets also offering their customers reusable alternatives; and the introduction of a surcharge on all disposable items sold. The proceeds to be used to set up reuse systems.

The business sector must also play its part by changing their practices. Corporations such as Mirvac have invested in a reusable cup system for their staff. Bonza Airways offer reusable cups in-flight. We need more businesses to act.

A big question we ask is - why don't our supermarkets offer a returnable container service for delicatessen items and for delivery services? This is becoming increasingly common across Europe and the UK.

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In April 2023, Boomerang Alliance supporters in their thousands voiced their concerns about the lack of soft plastic collections following the collapse of the REDcycle scheme. Since then, the Australian Food and Grocery Council has provided more details of recovery via pilots of its evolving National Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme. It involved a few local government areas trialling the collection of soft plastics through household kerbside collection.

Households place soft plastics in a special bag that can be identified at the recycling centre so it can be sorted separately. Soft plastics and plastic film and bags can't be recovered alongside other recyclables like paper or rigid plastic containers.

So far the trial is proving successful and showing that collection at kerbside can work. The emerging scheme also requires the packaging industry to contribute to the cost of collections. This is a key principle that must be adopted under any Product Stewardship scheme.

It's urgent we resolve this as households (even those which were stockpiling) are now disposing of soft plastics in the bin. The Boomerang Alliance is calling for the scheme to be expanded nationally in 2024. This would mean any household that has a kerbside recycling collection service would also be able to discard their soft plastic wastes in their recycling bin using a dedicated bag for this purpose.

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Whilst we wait for the Commonwealth Government to release its consultation paper for the promised Product Stewardship for Packaging Scheme (scheduled to be in place by 2025), the Boomerang Alliance has challenged the packaging industry to cooperate and take full responsibility for its products and pay the full costs of product design, collection, and processing of all packaging.

EPR or product stewardship is based upon the polluter pays principle.In the case of packaging, its successful application means that those who produce the packaging and put it into the market must assume full responsibility for that packaging through its entire life cycle, including after it has been discarded by the consumer.

This means producers taking a circular economy approach involving the whole supply chain, with producers directly accountable for meeting stringent reduction, recovery and recycled content targets. The soft plastics crisis, following the collapse of REDCycle collections, was a result of an industry failing to take responsibility for its own packaging waste and government trusting a voluntary program.

The container refund schemes now active across Australia, are successful examples of a circular economy where producers (the beverage industry) are responsible for the full costs associated with the recovery of their products.

The Boomerang Alliance has released its model for a Product Stewardship scheme.

We have briefed all State and Territory Governments and called for our model to be adopted.The community has been waiting for over 25 years to solve the packaging waste crisis, it's time to get the policies and practices right.

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