From our Environment Chair Judith Charnaud

Climate impacts of Plastic Consumption in Australia
The Environmental Crisis seems to be getting a lot of airplay at the moment – which is a good thing as people are becoming more aware of what is happening and more importantly what we can do to help reduce the impacts of climate change.
Every day in the newspapers there are articles of environmental interests to be read, such as “Helping Clients Embrace Sustainability, “Net zero, it will change your life, “Helping the Planet One Bag at a time”, Super-natural plastic alternative bags”; and so on.
I recently attended a webinar presented by Australian Marine Conservation and World Wildlife Fund on Climate impacts of Plastic Consumption in Australia.
In this webinar many alarming facts on the production, use and end-of-life processes of plastic consumption were presented by Kyle O’Farrel, Blue Environmental Research Officer and Kate Nobel from WWF.

*There are over 500 types of plastic in use today but only 7 are common – PET, HDPE, PVC, PP, LDPE and PS or if you prefer; Polyethylene Terephthalate, High Density Polyethylene, Polyvinyl Chloride, Polypropylene, Low Density Polystyrene, even the names sound a bit ominous!

*Australia produces 3 million tonnes of plastic per annum, of which less than 12% is recycled, up to 130,000 tonnes will end up in the oceans as plastic pollution each year.

*End-of-life  processes for plastic include mechanical recycling, chemical recycling or conversion, dumping in waste sites, littering.

*Plastic does not breakdown so every piece of plastic ever produced is still with us today, much of it as microplastics.
*The emissions from Australian plastic consumption per year is equal to that of 5.7 million cars on the road.
* Wealthier countries use more plastic per year than poorer nations – Australia is one of the top 3 consumers.
The solutions to plastic energy use and pollution include:
*Reduce use.
*Transfer from fossil fuel based plastics to plant based.
*Use renewable energy in production and recycling.
*Reuse, repair and maximise recycling.
*Support global regulation in plastic reduction.
Realistically plastic consumption will double in the next ten years so more needs to be done in reduction.

A bright note is that currently a strong groundswell of support by governments, business, communities and individuals to reduce plastic consumption is in full swing.
Let’s help keep this momentum going. As a Rotary Club we can become a supporter of the End Plastic Soup Campaign initiated in 2018 by the Rotary Clubs of Amsterdam and now a worldwide environment project for Rotarians. I will talk about this at the next meeting.

Don’t forget to watch, the War on Waste, Craig Reucassel ABC each Tuesday evening or stream it from iView.

For an interesting and thought provoking read download the free e-book Oxfam Understanding Climate Change. https://www.oxfam.org.au/ebooks/understanding-climate-change/