Waste Right Now

In Australia we send 84% of plastic waste into landfill. Per capita we are second only to America with the amount of rubbish we send to the dump!

¹ In fact we send enough rubbish to landfill each year to cover the state of Victoria. And if it doesn’t end up in landfill then it’s stockpiled, because we don’t know what to do with it.

Across industrial suburbs of Melbourne, massive warehouses are filled with waste from insolvent recycler SKM. ²

Our Proposed Solution

Recycled plastic can be remade into bottles and containers and used to produce things like furniture, building materials or even roads.

However we have no incentives to use recycled plastic when virgin plastic is cheaper.

Waste plastic has to be cleaned, processed, and cleared by quality assurance before going to market, which makes it very expensive.

We propose that the government incentivise the recycled plastic market, to encourage consumers to choose recycled plastic over virgin material.

Take a moment to consider how many people have solar panels on their roof because the government incentivised solar power. People want to do the right thing, but price also has to be considered.

Benefits of a circular economy

What if we could build an economy that uses things rather than uses them up?

It would mean designing for durability, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling to keep products, components, and materials circulating in the economy.

Moving towards a more circular economy would reduce pressure on the environment, reduce pressure on local council, improve the security of the supply of raw plastic materials, stimulate innovation, boost economic growth and create jobs.

Encourage start-ups and take pressure off local council:

At the moment local council is floundering under the onslaught of waste. Government Departments are warning us that if we want to meet our national recycling targets by 2025, then we would need to upgrade our plastic reprocessing by up to 400 per cent in the wake of export restrictions.

However, what if we could encourage start-ups to enter the market, and shoulder some of the burden local council is facing? We need to help circular start-ups by boosting market demand for their products and services through initiatives like this.

Reduction in types of plastic:

At the moment there are over 300 different types of plastic out there, and each type needs to be recycled differently. The two easiest to recycle are, PET and HDPE. If we did create a circular economy, then what is easiest to recycle could dictate the demand for raw materials.

It would mean that the easy to recycle PET and HDPE would displace harder to recycle plastics when it comes to product packaging.

Research and innovation is needed to create new, easier to recycle plastics to replace difficult to recycle products which will still meet design requirements such as extended shelf life for food.

Driving plastic innovation:

Would a circular economy drive plastic innovation? In the 70 years that plastic has been around it’s barely changed. In that same time period we’ve created cars, mobile phones and landed a man on the moon. We want to know that the plastic bottle used today can be recycled again and again, just like glass. Certainly it would make monetary sense in a circular economy for plastic to be recycled again and again.

Research and innovation is needed to create new, easier to recycle plastics to replace difficult to recycle products which will still meet design requirements such as extended shelf life for food.

Reduce Carbon Emissions

It takes less energy and less carbon to use recycled material!

At Mungalli we are invested in creating a healthy future for the next generation. It’s why we’ve farmed Biodynamically for over 30 years. But the future is so much more than just our farm.

In our lifetime there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. We have children and hope that one day our children will have children. What future we are leaving them?

Our relationship with plastic needs rethinking. Plastics are versatile materials, but the way we use them is incredibly wasteful. We take oil and gas from the earth to make plastic products that are often designed to be used only once, and then we throw them away.

In QLD we have no market for recycled plastic and no incentives to create a circular economy. It’s expensive to collect, process, and clean waste plastic and it means recycled plastic is very expensive – more so than virgin plastic.

With no market to sell your product into, and unable to compete again a fresher model would you go to the effort of collecting waste plastic?

With your help, we want to change our current model. We have a social media platform, we have our passionate customers and stockists, why can’t we join together to create change for the greater community?

We need your help. We need you to show up and speak out, because plastic is wasted in landfill. Let’s see what’s possible when a group of thoughtful, committed people get together and work for social change.

Let’s create a healthy future for the next generation.