Page 20 - Packaging News Magazine Jan-Feb 21

20
SUSTAINABILITY | www.packagingnews.com.au | January-February 2021
2025 Targets: Are we on track?
In order for Australia to meet the National Packaging Targets by 2025, it
is critical that we measure our progress, identifying both areas of success to learn from, and areas requiring more attention in the coming years.
plastics. While the recovery for plas- tics has increased, from 16 per cent to 18 per cent, it is clear significant progress is still required to meet the 2025 Target of a 70 per cent recovery rate. However, the higher recovery rates for individual polymers (including 36 per cent for PET and 23 per cent for HDPE) offer some cause for optimism.
NEW FINDINGS
This year, APCO expanded its research to incorporate two new areas of investigation: packaging in landfill, which aims to understand how much valuable material is sent to landfill (and therefore how much potential value is wasted); and reus- able packaging, which explores how this packaging format can reduce reliance on single-use packaging and other environmental benefits.
PACKAGING IN LANDFILL
2.9 million tonnes of packaging were disposed to landfill in 2018- 19, accounting for 50 per cent of the total amount of packaging placed on market. The impacts of landfilling instead of recycling available mate- rial include:
• Economic cost: Landfilling instead of recycling available material represents a lost value of around $520 million (the value of this packaging if it had been sorted and diverted to recycling instead of landfill);
• Carbon cost: Landfilling instead of recycling available material resulted in approximately 2 mil- lion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
REUSABLE PACKAGING
Five established Australian reusable packaging systems were selected for this pilot quantification:
• Kegs: Beer kegs only
• Pallets: Reusable timber and plas- tic pallets only, including display pallets; single-use pallets are excluded
• Milk crates: Non-collapsible plas- tic crates, limited to dairy product applications only
• Returnable plastic crates (RPCs): Collapsible plastic crates
TO enable this process, every year APCO produces an annual report mapping the state of packaging in Australia and, crucially, tracking our prog- ress towards the 2025 Targets. The latest iteration, Australian
packaging consumption and recy- cling data 2018–19, was published in December 2020 and contains sev- eral key takeaways for the packag- ing supply chain to take forward into 2021.
SETTING A BASELINE
Last year’s inaugural edition of the report was used to set a quantitative baseline for the packaging system, identify the greatest gaps and oppor- tunities for change, and inform the strategic direction of the Our Packaging Future publication – Australia’s strategic roadmap to 2025. Published in April 2020, Our Packaging Future provides the col- lective framework for how Australia will deliver the 2025 Targets and provides specific strategies that organisations must implement to help transition Australia to a circu- lar economy for packaging.
The latest iteration of the report
published in December 2020 pro- vides insight into the trajectory of progress against the 2025 Targets – identifying what is working, and also what needs to change to make the targets a reality.
CURRENT PROGRESS
The core finding of this year’s report is that the overall trends are positive and progress towards the 2025 Targets is being made year-on-year. However, it is clear that significant action from stakeholders across the supply chain is still required for Australia to meet the 2025 Targets.
Positively, there were significant improvements in a range of areas, including a 6 per cent reduction in the volume of plastic on the market, which came alongside an increase in the volume of recyclable packag- ing. Crucially, 89 per cent of packag- ing on the market is now recyclable.
Of course, the other side of that coin is looking at how much actually is being recycled. While recovery rates are strong for certain materials, including 63 per cent for paper and paperboard and 56 per cent for metal, challenges remain in the recovery of