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The last straw: breaking up with single-use plastics

Emily Anderson explores why single-use plastic bans may not be a silver bullet solution to our plastic waste crisis.

Single-use plastics make up a third of Victoria's litter. Photo: Emily Anderson

When Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin invented the humble plastic bag in 1959, he thought he was doing the planet a favour.


Cheap, lightweight, and durable – plastic bags were a marvel of engineering.


Unlike their paper counterparts, they were designed to be used more than once, and their production didn’t involve cutting down trees.


“To my dad, the idea that people would simply throw these away would be bizarre,” Sten’s son, Raoul Thulin, told the BBC.


Since the 1950s, our desire for convenience has had unintended consequences, with humans producing an estimated 8.3 million tonnes of plastic, the vast majority of which has ended up in landfills or the natural environment.


In recent years, lightweight plastic shopping bags have been universally banned across Australia, and now many states are taking it a step further, committing to ban other problematic single-use items.


However, it may take a more comprehensive approach to kerb our decades-long plastic addiction.


Some states falling behind

As of 1 February 2023, Victoria became the latest state to impose a ban on the sale and supply of several single-use plastic items.

According to the state government, single-use items account for a third of Victoria’s litter.

Items included in the ban are cutlery, plates, drink stirrers, cotton bud sticks, expanded polystyrene food and drink containers, and drinking straws.

Boomerang Alliance director Jeff Angel welcomes the ban but would like to see the state make further commitments.

“It does put Victoria behind other states like Queensland and Western Australia, which are going into second and third tranches and have timetables for it,” he says.

"Frankly, the way governments are moving on single-use plastic bans...they're not harmonising."

Some state and territory governments have made commitments to ban further single-use items. Photo: marineconservation.org.au

The Boomerang Alliance represents more than 50 community-based environmental organisations across Australia and runs the “Plastic Free Places Program” assisting businesses to reduce their single-use plastic consumption.


Mr Angel says coffee cups, heavyweight plastic bags and other plastic foodware and packaging, such as “soy sauce fish” should be next on the list.


“Boomerang has been pushing more recently that when you dine in at a food place, food should not be served in single-use foodware…it should be served in reusable foodware which can be washed, etc.”


Single-use coffee cups and lids have not yet been banned in Victoria. Photo: Emily Anderson

Green alternatives or greenwashing?


With bans coming into effect, businesses have been switching out their single-use plastic items for so-called green alternatives made from bamboo, paper and other biodegradable or compostable materials.


Kirsty Bishop-Fox, president of Zero-Waste Victoria and a sustainability educator, says that many businesses don’t have the capacity to dispose of compostable items at the right facilities.


“What we've done is we've swapped one single use for another type of single use,” she says.


"These compostable items aren't being composted, and they end up in landfill – therefore, the end result is the same."

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