Waste

Waste management policy should adopt a zero waste goal to conserve natural resources for future generations.

Waste management is a global challenge, and Australia’s responses must promote global, social, economic, and ecological justice.

Principles

The Australian Greens believe that:

  1. Waste management is a global challenge, and Australia’s responses must promote global, social, economic, and ecological justice.
  2. Australia should adopt a zero waste goal to conserve natural resources for future generations, avoid the build-up of toxic substances, conserve water, and achieve net negative greenhouse gas emissions and deep cuts in other sources of pollution.
  3. Avoiding and reducing waste, and reusing, repairing and recycling products, are integral to effective waste management.
  4. Effective design that enables product repair, reuse and recycling is integral to developing an effective circular economy.
  5. Waste should be treated as a resource and reused in a way that achieves the maximum social, economic and environmental benefit.
  6. The full social, health, environmental and economic costs must be assessed when making decisions about the use of materials to enable a move towards a circular economy.
  7. Product stewardship, taking financial and physical responsibility for a product at the end of its life, should be mandated for manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
  8. Hazardous waste creation must be rigorously and independently regulated with a view to eliminating the need for any long term waste storage.
  9. The transport of hazardous waste must be minimised, and the Australian community must be fully informed about its location, disposal and transportation.
  10. There should be high standards of transparency and accountability for the management of waste across industry, especially the waste management and  recycling industries.
  11. All industries and sectors should be part of the transition towards a circular economy.

Aims

The Australian Greens want:

  1. A comprehensive national waste strategy, addressing each stage of the production and consumption cycle, with mandatory targets for the recovery of different categories of waste.
  2. Australian states and territories to achieve a nationally consistent approach to:
    1. implementing a national phase out of the use of landfills for the disposal of recyclable materials;
    2. documenting and monitoring the generation of different waste streams, with a focus on hazardous materials with the aim of keeping all stockpiles and newly generated hazardous waste to a minimum;
    3. phasing out non-recyclable and hazardous materials; 
    4. working with manufacturers, distributors and importers, as well as local governments, to provide sustainable waste reuse and recycling facilities, including reuse and recycling strategies that meet minimum health, safety and environmental standards; and
    5. providing incentives for recycling and reusing products.
  3. A tax on extracting or importing primary materials that are scarce, non-renewable or polluting, to reflect the real costs they impose on the community. Such taxes, in turn, will make recycling and re-use the preferred option for industry.
  4. An effective legal framework to ensure products are designed and manufactured so that they can be repaired and reused independently of the original manufacturer.
  5. Rights to repair to be incorporated into national consumer law alongside enhanced warranty protections and the development of an appropriately skilled workforce to repair products.
  6. To work towards a national framework for standardising the volume and dimensions of durable food containers to promote their near-unlimited and safe re-use.
  7. Independent verification of the National Pollution Inventory to ensure it comprehensively documents all point source substances released into the environment.
  8. The active management of greenhouse gas emissions from current and legacy landfill sites.
  9. The elimination of the incineration of materials which produce toxic emissions.
  10. The strict enforcement of penalties for illegal dumping, set at levels sufficient to act as a deterrent.
  11.  A national container deposit scheme.
  12. To prohibit the export of hazardous waste and e-waste unless similar health, safety and environmental standards exist in the importing country.
  13.  Strengthening product labelling to improve awareness of product longevity, repairability and the environmental impacts associated with their consumption.
  14. The mandatory labelling of electronics and large manufactured goods that clearly indicates that they may not be placed in household waste or municipal landfill streams.
  15. An evidence-based, national labelling scheme for products that are biodegradable, reusable or recyclable, and for products which are primarily made from recycled materials.
  16. Landfill levies, with funds raised used to improve waste management and discourage waste disposal to landfill.
  17. Consumers, governments, retailers, distributors and manufacturers to be encouraged to reduce packaging and offer consumers options for zero packaging.
  18. Standards for product design which encourage ease of recovery of materials for reuse.
  19. Support for research, development and commercialisation of advanced waste processing.
  20. Regulation of production and distribution of goods to ensure high quality, fit for purpose products, eliminating built-in obsolescence and single-use products and promoting cradle-to-grave policies to effect maximum reuse and recycling of resources.
  21. Incineration of waste for the purposes of waste to energy should be banned as it incentivises the use of problematic plastics and other waste, increases toxic emissions and greenhouse gas emissions.

(Waste Policy as amended by National Conference June 2024.)