INTRODUCTION
As part of Clean Up Australia Day 2005, the nation's largest community based environmental event, over 670,000 volunteers across the country removed more than 8,450 tonnes of rubbish from our beaches, parks, streets, bushland and waterways.
Families, friends, neighbours, businesses and community groups spent the equivalent of 62,163 days, at 7,044 sites, removing rubbish ranging from car bodies and electronic waste to thousands of chip packets, drink bottles, plastic bags and cigarette butts.
Ian Kiernan AO, Chairman & Founder of Clean Up Australia, praised volunteers and site organisers around the country, congratulating the thousands of volunteers who spent their time removing packaging waste and illegally dumped items from the environment.
"This is a clear demonstration to government and business that Australians do care about the environment, with volunteers cleaning up 1,545 roadsides, 738 parks and 1,387 waterways and coastal areas," he said.
In 2005 the country's most polluted sites were parks and waterfronts.
Weird and interesting items collected around the country included an unopened slab of beer and a bottle of whiskey, two headless garden statues, a bride's veil, an electric guitar, a plastic monkey and a chair up a tree.
The most common rubbish items found were plastic and glass bottles, chip and confectionery packets, plastic bags and cigarette butts.
"Sadly these rubbish items continue to end up in the environment when plastic containers should be recycled, cigarette butts should be binned and we should all being saying NO to plastic bags," Mr Kiernan said
The Clean Up Australia Day campaign is one time during the year when Australians get physical about cleaning up the environment. It also provides the platform to implement positive environmental practices every day of the year.
The Boomerang Alliance
Every year on Clean Up Australia Day a large percentage of the rubbish collected is recyclable - items such as paper, glass and plastic. This year the amount of paper and glass items increased, an alarming trend considering that these packaging items are wholly recyclable.
It is estimated that only 20% of plastic packaging is recycled, this is way below paper recycling at 80% and is not good enough. We need government and industry to take action immediately by setting strong targets for the National Packaging Covenant and investing more resources to address this issue.
Recognising that urgent action is needed to help reduce Australia's growing packaging waste problem, Clean Up Australia joined the Boomerang Alliance, a coalition of major environmental groups committed to eliminating packaging waste. Members of the Boomerang Alliance include:
- Arid Lands Environment Centre
- Australian Conservation Foundation
- Clean Up Australia
- Conservation Council of Western Australia
- Environment Victoria
- Greenpeace
- Nature Conservation Council of NSW Inc
- Queensland Conservation Council
- Total Environment Centre
Through the efforts of the Boomerang Alliance, the National Packaging Covenant will now include targets that will reduce packaging waste by:
- Reducing total amounts of packaging going to landfill
- Increasing the amount of packaging recycled
- Increasing amounts of recycled packaging used in new products and
- Reducing the use of non-recyclable packaging.
As of 1 July 2005, an overall packaging recycling target of 65% by 2010 has been built into the National Packaging Covenant.
The next step for The Boomerang Alliance is to tackle packaging waste by lobbying for the introduction of container deposits throughout Australia - a simple program of placing a deposit on a bottle, can or other container that is refunded when the container is returned, thereby giving consumers an incentive to do the right thing.
Plastic bag litter audit
As part of its Say NO to Plastic Bags Campaign, Clean Up Australia is working to rid the environment of plastic bags. This year, as part of the Rubbish Report Survey, volunteers on Clean Up Australia Day collected additional data on the types of plastic bags collected at various sites.
Empty chip and confectionery bags made up the largest percentage, accounting for 49% of all plastic bags found. They were followed by empty, lightweight supermarket bags which accounted for 17%. Empty 'barrier' bags (small, clear plastic bags used for items such as fruit and vegetables) were in third place, accounting for 10% of all plastic bags found.
The majority of plastic bags reported were empty, with re-used bags accounting for just 2%.
12.7% of bags were found at rivers/creeks, closely followed by 10% found at beach/coastal areas.
These figures demonstrate that chip, confectionery and supermarket bags are a serious threat to our environment, often ending up in waterways - strangling marine life, or being mistaken by animals as food. Supermarket bags can also take up to 1000 years to break down in the environment.
This year, Clean Up Australia's Say NO to Plastic Bag Campaign has continued to help reduce the amount of plastic bags littering our environment. The campaign has helped contribute to a 33.8% reduction in the number of plastic bags given out by the major supermarket chains (as at 30 June 2005), by increasing awareness about the environmental impact of plastic bags and encouraging both shoppers and retailers to say NO to plastic bags, to switch to alternatives and to use them at all shops not just the supermarket.
Building on this success, Clean Up Australia recently launched a website and suite of materials to help small business retailers make the switch away from plastic bags. The website was developed in partnership with the Australian Government and the Australian Retailers Association and can be viewed at
www.noplasticbags.org.au
