SUBJECTS: SOFT PLASTICS RECYCLING; MEDIBANK DATA BREACH

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Recycling can feel like one of the handful of things we can do as individuals to reduce the impact of our consumption on the planet. But news that Coles and Woolworths soft plastic recycling scheme, REDcycle, has been paused because of a fire and they haven’t told customers is another reminder that it’s a far from perfect system. It’s also raised questions and transparency in waste management and the amount of progress being made towards Australia’s national recycling targets.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek joins us now. Welcome back to Breakfast.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Great to be with you, Patricia.

KARVELAS: So the latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show Australian households in 2019 produced 1.2 million tonnes of plastic waste. That includes both hard and soft plastics. Doesn’t it show we have a plastic problem in our country and there actually should be less use full stop?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Absolutely. The first and most important thing we can do is use less plastic. Every single one of us. And I met last month with state and territory environment ministers. We’ve agreed to work together to reform the regulation around packaging by 2025 so that all packaging that will be used in Australia will be designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed safely in the sort of circular economy way.

It is important that we use less. It’s important that we recycle or reprocess, reuse in some way. But that needs to be done at the design phase of packaging of products as well. About 70 per cent of the waste in a product is embedded in the design phase of the product. We need to design out problematic plastic use as well.

KARVELAS: You’ve told Coles and Woolworths they have to step up and fix this problem. What options are they looking at?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I’ve spoken to Coles and Woolies, as you say. I’ve spoken to REDcycle and a number of other important players in this problem. Look, they need to step up. The big retailers are enormous generators of plastic products. And the way they work with their suppliers is really important here in reducing unnecessary packaging.

I know Coles and Woolies do agree that they have a responsibility here to reduce plastic waste, and they’re looking at all their options now. We’ll continue to meet next week and, you know, deal with the issue that we’ve got with 18,000 tonnes of soft plastic sitting in warehouses right now.

I think it’s worth saying, Patricia, the government has set aside about a quarter of a billion dollars, including in the last budget $60 million set aside for soft plastic and another problematic plastic recycling. A lot of those new plants and new equipment that are being imported and built at the moment will come online in the next couple of years. And the plastic that is being collected is not rubbish – it’s actually a valuable commodity when you’ve got the equipment and the facilities to recycle it.

And the stuff that REDcycle was previously recycling was ending up as Coles shopping trolleys, it was going into footpaths, it was being made into garden edging. There’s a lot of really great recycled products that we can make and use if we’ve got the equipment. And that $60 million in particular for soft plastics recycling will help us do that because it will attract co-investment by states and territories and also co-investment by the private sector as well.

KARVELAS: Was there a failure here in disclosure as well? I mean, it was only the reporting which allowed us to know that this was being stockpiled. I know this is a really hot-button issue. People are outraged that they thought they were doing the right thing as individuals as much as you possibly can and that this has just been sitting there.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, I think people should have been made – the information should have been made public much earlier. I don’t think there was particular ill-intent here. I think REDcycle was hoping to find another use for the plastic so that it wouldn’t be stockpiled, it would be recycled. But I think taking the public into your confidence as early as possible is always a good idea.

KARVELAS: And they won’t be able to really get anything online until into next year. Is that timeline workable?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, we’re continuing to look at alternatives here. I mean, there are other ways that we can reuse some of this plastic. I don’t want to pre-empt the discussions that we’ll be continuing to have next week, but I’m hopeful that we can get something done sooner than the 12 to 18 months that some people have suggested we might need to wait. That’s just not good enough.

KARVELAS: No, that’s an enormously long period of time. And, of course, more waste accumulates in that period, too. It’s not like you just pause and nothing happens.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It kills you a little bit every time a bit of plastic goes into landfill, right? I know most families feel like our family does – you do your very best. You’re sorting your garbage, you’re recycling, you're taking stuff down to the supermarket. And the thought that this stuff’s ending up in landfill is really, I think, you know, distressing for a lot of people. We know that Australians are not great recyclers by international standards. We’ve got the highest material footprint in the G20. We know that by 2050 if we keep going the way we’re going globally the amount of plastic in the ocean will outweigh the fish in the ocean. We know that recycling is not just good for the environment; it’s good for the economy. The jobs that are involved in recycling beat the jobs in landfill threefold. So by recycling we’re creating jobs as well as protecting the environment. We’ve got a real opportunity of a win-win-win here, and we’ve got to take it.

KARVELAS: There’s also a lack of transparency, not just in this case but around more broadly recycling. Should you be able to find out exactly where your pasta packet is going or, you know, if you buy any of those snacks for your children that go to school – and many people would have done that – layer upon layer of packaging around those snacks is just unfathomable. Should we know where it’s going?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, there’s a lot of work being done on greater traceability of the inputs into packaging, and I think that's something that we can look at in the future. I think I said earlier I had discussions with environment ministers recently at the environment ministers meeting and we’re looking at the sort of reform of the regulation of packaging. What we’re trying to do is reform that regulation so that all packaging that’s available in Australia will be designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed safely. And that will be a huge reform.

And just earlier this week, in fact, I added a number of products to what’s called the minister’s priority list. This is a list where we are really focusing our attention on goods that are hard to recycle. So I’ve put medical waste, mattresses and tyres on to the minister’s priority list. This is essentially a kind of telegraph to these industries that if they don’t get their act into gear I will regulate. And I’ve moved solar panels and electronic goods from that minister’s priority list into a category where I will regulate because they’ve been warned and they haven’t really got their act into gear. So the next step is to regulate for solar panels and electronic goods to be recycled and to have a much stricter set of rules about recycling in these industries.

We’ve got to offer industries the opportunity of getting it right. We’re working with the Food and Grocery Council to try and get more sustainable solutions for soft plastics in food and grocery. But, of course, if they don’t get it right, then, down the track we look at regulation.

KARVELAS: Recycling organisations have been saying for years that we need mandated targets for recycled content in manufactured goods, right, including in government purchasing. Are you considering that, particularly government purchasing?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve been talking across government. Obviously the whole of the public sector has a zero net emissions target as well, and getting our circular economy right in the government, in government procurement in particular, is something that we can do to help achieve that zero net emissions target.

We know that government is a huge purchaser of goods in a whole lot of different ways. By encouraging procurement that includes recycled content we can have a big impact.

KARVELAS: Just moving to another issue before I let you go, Minister, sensitive data, including on abortions, has been released by Russian criminal group claiming to be behind the theft of Medibank hacking data. The Home Affairs Minister has called the people behind this “scumbags”, pledging police will track them down. But can anything actually be done to stop this information leaking? And this is incredibly personal information. It’s so alarming that people are going through this right now.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, it is absolutely disgusting that any criminal organisation should behave in this way. Of course it is. And I’d urge people who believe they may have been affected to contact the one stop shop that’s been set up. The phone number is 13 23 31, 13 23 31.

Look, it’s just disgusting behaviour isn’t it. And we need to make sure that big companies that hold so much personal data actually do their very best to protect it. You know, it’s not really clear from this data breach how they’ve got into the system, but we’ve had several very acute warnings in the last couple of weeks that big companies that hold our data need to be responsible for protecting that data.

KARVELAS: Medibank says it’s providing to customers who have been impacted and stand ready to provide more if there’s another data leak. Does that sound to you like they’re just sitting ducks on this? They’re refusing to pay the ransom, which the government has supported. But what are they trying to do to stop more data being released? People are just waiting and waiting with anxiety.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, I know. It’s a horrifically anxious time for people who are worried about their data being made public. And, you know, as for not paying the ransom, I can understand how difficult a decision this is for companies – whether to pay the ransom or not. But the simple fact is you’re dealing with criminal networks, there’s no guarantee that even if you pay the ransom they don’t end up using the data. So all I can suggest is that people who believe they’ve been affected stay in touch with Medibank and call that one-stop-shop number – 13 23 31.

KARVELAS: Tanya Plibersek, thanks for joining us this morning.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Thanks so much, Patricia.

KARVELAS: That’s the Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek.