South Australians want government action on single-use plastics

An overwhelming majority of South Australians say government action is needed to curb the amount of single-use plastics littering our environment and waterways — with the State Government set to make a decision on what will be banned in the coming months.

• SA’s Environment Minister wants to ban single-use plastics
• Business and environment groups react to single-use ban push
• INSIGHT: We review 10 years of the plastic bag ban
• Compostable bags big business for Netley’s BioBag World

Almost 97 per cent of South Australians say government action is needed to curb the amount of single-use plastics littering our environment and waterways including straws, cutlery and coffee cups.

Environment Minister David Speirs says the results of a Government discussion paper show the “community clearly wants change” and the State Government will make a decision about which single-use plastics should be allowed in South Australia in coming months.

Of the 3226 survey responses, 98.9 per cent said they believed single-use plastics were causing environmental problems and 96.8 per cent said government intervention was required to address them.

Minister for Environment and Water David Speirs

Mr Speirs said any action from the State Government would not be immediate, saying “we need to look at how we phase it (single-use items) out over time”.

He said he was not surprised by the results of the discussion paper, which he kickstarted in January by declaring he wanted to take action so SA could again lead the nation in recycling.

“Certainly at the community level I’ve been picking that up for some months, you can tell there’s a lot of community support,” he said.

“There’s such community support I think that the Government needs to take that seriously.

“People want action. The Government’s going to have to do that in a way that’s pragmatic and avoids unreasonable amounts of red tape.”

Mr Speirs said he’d wait to digest written responses to the discussion paper, hold discussions with the recycling industry and business community and look at overseas countries and cities who have taken action against single-use products before deciding on the way forward.

Bans on certain single-use items have already been announced or implemented in France, the European Union, the US cities of Seattle, Malibu and New York City, and the Indian capital of New Delhi.

Mr Speirs said studying what worked and what didn’t in those would inform the way SA approached potential bans on single-use plastic items.

“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel if we don’t have to,” he said.

Businesses had been “largely positive” in their response to the call for action on single-use plastics, Mr Speirs said, pointing to Business SA describing a ban as a “small inconvenience” compared to the benefit it would have for the state’s economy and tourism industry.

“They don’t want it to create unnecessary red tape, so we’ll have to work together to work out a pragmatic way forward.

Commonly littered single-use plastic items include confectionary wrappers, takeaway coffee cups and lids, straws, drink stirrers, soft drink bottles, cotton bud sticks, cigarette butts, food packaging and plastic bags.

It’s estimated South Australian use about 255 million plastic straws and 210 million plastic-lined takeaway coffee cups each year.