Australia needs to set national guidelines on plastic recycling for consistent recycling schemes across the nation, an inquiry has been told. On June 30 during the parliamentary inquiry into plastic pollution in Australia’s oceans and waterways, Clean Up Australia’s CEO Jenny Geddes said the rules around plastic recycling need to be clearer to ensure people…

Australia’s packaging industry will be forced to clean up its act under mandatory waste-busting regulations that will also deal with harmful chemicals used to contain food. It’s been known for some time that the industry would face regulation, after it failed to meet the voluntary targets to cut landfill by ramping up the recovery and reuse…

Plastic now dwarfs every other kind of litter found on Australian shores and 80 percent of what the nation uses still ends up in landfill. A federal parliamentary inquiry has heard confronting evidence about how the pollution crisis is affecting Australia’s oceans and waterways, and how efforts to understand and tackle the problem are failing….

Plastics entering the world’s oceans may nearly triple by 2040 if the situation is left unchecked, according to a recent study. The amount of seaborne plastic waste has surged dramatically since 2005, to an estimated 171 trillion plastic particles by 2019, according to research published on March 8 by the 5 Gyres Institute, a U.S.-based…

Supermarket giants Coles, Woolworths, and ALDI will form a task force to address the suspension of a soft plastic recycling program following the collapse of REDcycle. REDcycle halted its soft plastic program on Nov. 9 citing “unforeseen challenges exacerbated by the pandemic” with its downstream recycling partners. The interim application of the “Soft Plastics Taskforce”…

HONG KONG—A Hong Kong government rule that all school students and staff take daily COVID-19 tests will add massively to the city’s plastic waste problem, environmental activists say, with some 20 million kits a month set to be dumped at bursting landfills. The mandatory rapid antigen tests (RAT), and their plastic accessories are expected to…

Some 25,900 tons of pandemic-related plastic now pollute the ocean, with the majority stemming from hospital and medical waste, a study has found. The study, published in the online journal PNAS on Monday, found that since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic until Aug. 23 this year, approximately 8.4 million tons of plastic waste had been…

The single-use carrier bag charge will increase from 5 pence ($0.07) to 10 pence ($0.14) and extend to all businesses in England from May 21, the Government has confirmed. Under the extension, all stores, including corner shops, will have to apply the charge. Previously only businesses with 250 employees or more had to charge per…

A Slovakian designer has been named the winner of the 2020 Grand Prix Award for her ingenious floating research station. Not only does the station have a sleek, beautiful design, but it also has the ability to clean the ocean’s waters. Lenka Petráková tackled a huge issue with her design concept: she decided to create…