Packaging chief’s plea: put waste fees to work for recycling

Raphael Geminder has criticised state governments for failing to direct billions of dollars collected in waste levies into recycling efforts.

Raphael Geminder. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Packaging billionaire Raphael Geminder has criticised state governments across Australia for failing to direct billions of dollars collected through waste levies into recycling efforts.

Mr Geminder, the chairman of listed packaging company Pact Group, said as little as 8 per cent of landfill levies was spent on developing recycling infrastructure.

The lack of investment had ­exacerbated the problems experienced since China blocked the import of plastic waste from Aus­tralia in 2018, a move that has left councils struggling to cope.

“If Australians knew that part of the tax they are paying to have that infrastructure in place to deliver what should be a circular economy is actually going into general revenue, they’d go berserk,” Mr Geminder said.

“Part of the reason we’ve had the recycling crisis we’ve had is we haven’t spent that money appropriately to build the infrastructure to build a circular economy.”

Pact last week announced that it would commit $500m to invest in new and existing facilities for ­sustainable packaging, reuse and recycling as part of its efforts to slash waste and increase its use of recycled plastics. Mr Geminder cited research by the Australian Council of ­Recycling, which found that only 8 per cent of the $2.6bn collected through waste levies was reinvested in infrastructure and technology for recycling.

The federal government on Wednesday ­hosted its first ­National Plastics Summit, with Scott Morrison identifying the movement of waste levies into general revenues as an issue.

“People are putting and paying fees on waste management levies that isn’t finding its way into recycling infrastructure and technology, and that has to change,” the Prime Minister said.

Mr Morrison said the government was ready to co-invest with the states and industry in developing recycling infrastructure.

Only about 16 per cent of plastic waste worldwide is recycled, well below the rates for paper and steel.

More than a quarter of all plastic waste is estimated to wind up in the environment.

Brooke Donnelly, the chief executive of the not-for-profit Australian Packaging Covenant ­Organisation, said there was a big gap between Australia’s recycling goals, infrastructure capacity and forecast consumption.

“If you work to the premise that consumption is going to ­continue at a constant rate, then we’ve got a massive gap of about four to five times our ­current infrastructure capacity to be able to meet our ­national ­packaging targets,” Ms Donnelly said.