National Packaging Targets

Product packaging exists across the entire supply chain from the way we manufacture, store and transport our products, right through to how we sell them to our customers. But just because packaging is a part of everyday life, that doesn’t mean it needs to cause damage to our environment.

That’s why the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation works in partnership with industry and government to build a system where packaging is a valuable resource within the circular economy.

In 2018 in response to China’s National Sword policy, the Australian government agreed to establish a sustainable path for the country’s recyclable waste. With regards to packaging, Ministers agreed to reduce the amount of waste generated and make it easier to recycle products by defining four National Packaging Targets to be achieved by 2025.

The National Packaging Targets are:

• 100% of all Australia’s packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable
• 70% of Australia’s plastic packaging will be recycled or composted
• 30% of average recycled content will be included across all packaging
• Problematic and unnecessary single-use plastic packaging will be phased out through design, innovation or introduction of alternatives.

The Targets will require a complete and systemic change to the way we create, collect and recover our product packaging, and will apply to all packaging that is made, used and sold in Australia. Right now, businesses across the country need to start responding to the challenge by asking what operational changes they need to make in order to drive this transformation.

APCO is the agency charged with overseeing the delivery of the Targets, and following extensive groundwork and research, in 2019 has implemented a program of projects which will help industry to collaboratively improve understanding and the capacity to achieve the targets.

This includes four significant data research projects. This research combines benchmarking consumption and recycling data, infrastructure mapping for collection, sorting and recycling of packaging, as well as economic analysis of alternative collection systems and end markets.

At AWRE, APCO CEO Brooke Donnelly will provide an overview of the research findings during the Benchmarking for 2025 National Packaging Targets panel discussion. Brooke will be joined by Dr. Helen Lewis, adjunct Professor with the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology Sydney, and Jacky Nordsvan, Nestle Oceania Packaging Specialist with over 25 years of FMCG packaging development and supply chain experience.

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