Environment minister Sussan Ley has declared the nation's first plastics summit to be held in 2020 to deal with the matter with Australia's growing rubbish problem.
Australia is not ready to send its mixed plastic waste overseas in the next few years, and chemical use predicted to double once more within the next 20 years. Ley said the summit would gather retailers, researchers, school children, and governments to figure out the way to discuss how to solve the crisis.
Plastic in the oceans will outweigh fish by 2015, predicts a report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in partnership with the World Economic Forum.
"[The report is] a scary prospect," Ley said. She noted that that other scientists expressed their concern about micro and nano plastics in the ocean, adding that people deem plastic as visible and ugly, therefore in the wrong place.
"The micro and nano plastics we can notice within the Southern Ocean are working its way into our larger mammals," Ley explained.
Scientists, according to the environment minister, are already discussing how every person could clean the ocean of plastic. However, Ley said one couldn't wait for that event to do that on an outsized scale.
What everyone is trying to do, according to Ley, is far less of what "virgin plastic" means.
According to The Guardian's report, the waste industry earlier argued government procurement objectives would be needed to make sure the recycling industry's survival and boom in Australia. Australia responds to moves from China, Indonesia, and other southeast Asian countries to prevent accepting shipments of Australian waste.
Ley said that was something the govt was "absolutely" examining but would wish more consultation with the states and industry before landing on a target.
While acknowledging that plastic is "amazingly long-lasting," Ley said there are other methods for it that make the rubbish a preferred proponent of our built environment and that I think that's a reasonably vital prospective to possess. We aren't just solving a drag here, and doing something which will cost tons of cash to save lots of us landfill.
According to Ley, the upcoming summit - which will be in March 2020 - is about the innovative ideas which will make plastic wanted.
She said changes aided the government's work in people's attitudes towards plastics, and where it finishes up, something she credits the younger generations.
According to the prime minister, the consumers want assurance what they put in their bin doesn't just get taken to the tip and put during a hole in the ground.
The action from Southeast Asian nations accepting Australia's waste has led to a crisis for the countries and territories in handling growing landfill issues. The situation made Australia come up with the 2021 mixed plastic waste export ban, and with plastic use predicted to double once again in the next two decades.
The plastic production has pushed the federal to get entangled in creating a national framework for a replacement recycling industry it says could solve Australia's waste issues. The nation called on finance for brand spanking new domestic plants to kickstart a replacement recycling industry.