Doing something about plastic waste
From plastic gift wrapping and curling ribbon, to the sparkly tinsel draped over the branches of your faux Christmas tree, the end-of-year “silly season” usually involves a lot of plastic! But for a while now the EPA has been proactive in tackling our society’s overuse of plastic.
There’s widespread community awareness and concern about the volume of plastics infiltrating our natural environment. This is partly because we’ve now all seen various upsetting photos and footage of what discarded plastics can do to wildlife when ingested.
Just ask Tama the turtle. The injured hatchling is now at Taronga Zoo after being rescued from Tamarama Beach. The unfortunate little reptile had eaten so many microplastics, it literally pooed plastic for six days. Luckily Tama made a full recovery and captured the public’s heart so much that it became the unofficial star of the NSW Plastics: Next Steps launch event in October. 
Have your say!
After banning some plastic items in November last year and months of collaboration with industry, community and partners, the EPA’s plastics consultation paper NSW Plastics: Next Steps was publicly launched at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo on 29 October.
The public consultation runs throughout the summer holiday period and closes at 5pm on Sunday 4 February 2024. We invite you to have your say here.
NSW Plastics: Next Steps is a great opportunity for anyone who’s interested in the health of our environment to have their say on the future of problematic plastics in NSW. The paper invites feedback on proposed action not just for specific plastic items mentioned in the paper, but also on any other items the community may nominate. Like all that curling ribbon and tinsel, for example!