How Australia is seeing a 'big shift' on plastic waste

A range of single-use plastic, including straws, cutlery and micro beads in shampoo, will be banned in its most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), in a bid to reduce waste. "Australia has been very active over the last few years in moving to ban single-use plastics. We now have bans in place in over half of Australia's states and territories," says Shane Cucow, the plastics campaign manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society. "It's been incredible progress considering just two years ago not a single state and territory had banned single-use plastics." A global comparison of plastics waste management placed Australia 7th among 25 nations for its overall efforts to control plastic pollution, behind European countries, Japan, the UK and the US. Australia was rated 1st for "promoting safe and informed plastic usage" but 16th for "efficient collection and sorting channels", said the report released in October last year.