The Plastic Pollution issue

The tide needs to turn on how much plastic we use, and where it ends up.

For every metre of coastline across the globe, there’s the equivalent of seven grocery bags full of rubbish. Soft plastics, like food packaging, are the biggest killers to marine life  And of the litter found along Australia’s coastlines, three-quarters of it is plastic. In addition to this, plastic use is expected to double by 2040. This is unsustainable.

Therefore, we’ve announced our Ending Plastic Waste Mission. We’re joining forces with government, industry, researchers and the Australian community to transform plastic pollution into a useful resource.

Tackling a global problem
Plastic waste isn’t just a domestic challenge. It’s a global issue. We are working with a range of international partners to apply best practice on managing plastic waste. Our global plastic pollution survey has been helping countries identify hotspots for rubbish in their waterways to develop intervention methods.

We also launched the Plastics Innovation Hub Indonesia to support the scaling of deep-tech solutions to tackle plastic waste in the region. This is set to roll out to other countries in the Indo-Pacific too. We are also working with India  to develop recycling innovation and a roadmap to better manage its waste.

How much rubbish is where: help us find out!

You can support us by collecting data on what rubbish is where.  Our national plastic pollution survey will tell us how much plastic pollution there is across Australia. It will give us a picture of the types of rubbish ending up on our streets and beaches. This will then help us identify what methods would work best to reduce it.

Conversation Volunteers Australia is helping us with our data collection efforts. So far, more than 3000 Australians have helped collect 270,000 items of rubbish. They have also removed 9000 kilos worth! 

Further innovations as part of our mission include researching the digestive processes of certain insects to understand if they can be used to breakdown waste, advanced recycling technologies to tackle hard-to-recycle plastics, PVC recycling to save it from landfill, and testing seaweed-derived polymers as a substitute for petroleum-based plastic.

We are working with a range of partners for this mission.