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Is Recycling in Australia a load of rubbish?

Most of us try to recycle responsibly. We sort our rubbish into plastics, cardboard, paper, and landfill waste in the hope that we’re saving the planet.

However, 84% of plastic in Australia is sent to landfill, and only 13% is recycled.

You may have even heard of “Wish cycling, ” in which we put plastics in the bin in the belief that they’ll be recycled and everything will be okay. 

But there have been reports of recyclable waste ending up in landfill or even being shipped overseas for processing (that’s quite a carbon footprint).

On today’s afternoon episode of The Briefing, Bension Siebert speaks with LiSTNR Investigations Editor Clair Weaver to unpack what was found.

Australia has recycling targets to meet by 2025 (e.g. 100% packaging to be recyclable, reusable, and compostable and increase recyclable material in packaging to 50%) but is unlikely to reach them – shockingly, by 2050, the amount of plastic in the ocean will outweigh the fish.

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