Millions of people are being urged to take part in Plastic Free July. Yet we know consumer choice is only one part of the picture. Eliminating plastic waste requires broader structural change.
Whether we can recycle plastic or not depends on what it’s made of (because there are many different types of plastic), if it’s sufficiently clean and if enough people will buy recycled products.
Nanoplastics are the smallest microplastics, far narrower than a human hair. Very little is known about their composition, structure or how they break down in the environment.
Australia’s Soft Plastics Taskforce has been under pressure to fill the vacuum left by the demise of REDcycle. But this time the small trial announced for Melbourne has the potential to succeed.
A central question remains unresolved in the draft treaty: Is plastic pollution basically a waste management problem, or can it be solved only with a cap on production?