How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter? 
Analysis shows Australia’s plastic recycling future at risk
Posted on January 28, 2026 by DrRossH in Plastic RecyclingACOR and APCO say the Australian Government must urgently introduce packaging reforms or risk the collapse of the country’s plastic recycling sector.
Source: Analysis shows Australia’s plastic recycling future at risk
Australia uses more than 1.3 million tonnes of plastic packaging each year — most of it imported — with more than one million tonnes ending up in landfill or littered.
Although Australian recyclers have the capability to process recyclable plastic, limited demand for locally recycled plastic packaging is placing facilities at risk of scaling back or closing.
An economic analysis undertaken by Rennie Advisory for ACOR and APCO determined that reform to ensure all packaging meets strict design standards, is made with recycled materials and is recyclable or reusable can help build a stronger, cleaner, more self-reliant economy.
The analysis, outlined in the ‘Securing Australia’s Plastic Recycling Future’ report, determined that introducing a fee-based Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, whereby brand owners and producers take responsibility for what happens to their plastic packaging after it’s disposed of, would have a negligible cost impact, adding just 0.1% to product costs.
The analysis found packaging reforms could deliver the following benefits over the next five years:
- Reducing the amount of plastic waste polluting the environment by 370,000 tonnes a year.
- Increasing economic activity in Australia by $2.5 billion in gross value-add.
- Spurring additional investment of $220 million in private capital.
- Creating almost 20,000 new jobs.
- Reducing CO2 emissions from plastic by 700,000 tonnes a year.
The development of National Packaging Laws was agreed to by the Australian Government in 2023, in response to the low rate of plastic recycling and the need to shift Australia from a ‘take, make, waste’ model to a sustainable circular economy.
Currently, most of the plastic packaging sold in Australia is made from imported, low-cost, fossil fuel-based plastics, and only 8% of packaging is made using recycled plastic.
This is despite significant government-supported investment in domestic recycling infrastructure and substantial efforts by many brand owners to redesign packaging for recyclability and recycled content.
Without regulatory reform, the analysis forecast that utilisation of existing Australian plastic recycling facilities could fall to just 32% within the next five years, resulting in facility closures, job losses and a stalling of investment in the circular economy.
There would also be a dramatic increase in plastic waste, with the cumulative cost to the environment projected to exceed $32 billion by 2050, while imported virgin plastics continue to increase.
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