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본문:
Plastics, they are remarkable:
They keep our food fresh.
It is vital for our medicines, our health system.
It is lightweight, it's inexpensive and it’s part of our everyday lives.
But therein lies the problem.
Plastic that is designed effectively, used correctly, recycled reliably, and manufactured creatively can stay in the economy almost indefinitely with little environmental impact.
But too often plastic products are not designed to be re-used or to be recycled.
They are not collected carefully, or are difficult to sort and process commercially. Or the market doesn’t support remanufacturing into valued products.
And that’s what we have to change.
The change we need is so substantial that the only way forward is working with our neighbours, working with our region, state, territory and local governments; and working with industry like manufacturers, supermarkets, customers; waste operators; everybody, communities included.
Today I want to clearly outline the three pillars of our plan as to how we believe this can be addressed as a government.
Firstly, it’s our waste, it’s our responsibility. Taking responsibility for our plastic waste.
Expanding industry capability, secondly.
And thirdly, encouraging demand for recycled products.
It’s about making Australia a world leader in how we manage our waste and recycling.
Firstly on the issue of taking responsibility.
Every year we export some 1.4 million tonnes of plastic waste, paper, glass and tyres.
Some of this material has been sorted, processed and will go on to form a valuable input to a commodity supply chain overseas, that’s true.
But much of it is of low value and destined to find its way into the environment through waterways, or into our oceans.
Waste sent to developing countries, usually by developed countries, for recycling is often dumped in poor villages, picked through by those living in poverty and the remainder burned or washed into the river and then to the ocean.
Every year, 8 million tonnes of plastics ends up in our oceans.
And developing countries are sick and tired of having to deal with developed countries’ waste. And so they should be, and that’s why we’re acting.
In the Pacific alone, there is an island of floating plastic waste which is nearly three times the size of France.
Now when someone first told me that, I found that hard to believe. I actually wanted to see a picture. And you hear lots of factoids in this job and people present numbers to you all the time, and that one sounded pretty far-fetched. But I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the images of this and it’s true, it’s there.
And it’s an indictment on all of us.
The vast bulk of this is estimated to have come from 8 rivers in the East Asian region.
Our Pacific family has not caused this problem, but they have to deal with the impacts of it on their fisheries, on their wildlife and islands.
We are choking our oceans.
Scientists estimate that in just 30 years’ time the weight of plastics in our oceans will exceed the weight of fish in our oceans.
Just think about that for a second.
Taking responsibility means recognising the problems we are contributing to - and it also means keeping faith with the Australian people who recycle because it is the right thing to do.
When we take the time and effort to sort, clean and dispose of something in the recycling bin, well it’s pretty reasonable that we think that it will be recycled.
Only 21 per cent of plastic waste we put in our yellow bin for recycling is actually recycled.
We’re getting ripped off.
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