Anyone who’s ever navigated a bin night will be fully aware that this glittering new age of yr fancy smartphone apps and whatnot, those which have made it insanely easy to get any food your tum desires delivered to your doorstep, also has had the unfortunately by-product of filling wheelie bins to the brim with takeaway containers.
The amount of delivery app bags that have to be shoved down and compacted in the average recycling bin nowadays is truly something to behold.
But of course this means that takeaway food is, overall, producing a shedload more refuse than what it used to.
Hobart, the beautiful capital of the best state in the land Tasmania, is set to lead a nation-first push to curb that by banning all plastic takeaway containers from businesses within the city council limits.
The Hobart City Council has announced that single-use petroleum-based plastic food containers and utensils will be totally banned and phased out of use within the city by 2020.
Greens Alderman Bill Harvey cited the ABC program ‘War on Waste‘ as a catalyst for the push, noting that the public’s perception of plastic pollution has shifted in response to the series.
People are aware now; so many Australians watched War on Waste on the ABC and that’s influenced their understanding of plastic pollution, so this is something that I think now communities expect.
We’re responsible for waste management in the city, so we’ve taken a lead. We’ve taken a really responsible approach to both litter management and reducing landfill, so it’s really exciting to be part of a council that’s leading the nation.
Around one third of Hobart food businesses currently use compostable items, and future plans would see a commercial-grade compost outlet installed by the council to facilitate the recycling of food containers and utensils.
Eventually we’ll have a compost system for commercial outlets and all the compostable organic material from cafes and restaurants will go off to a facility. But we haven’t got that yet. That’s one of our ambitions.
Alderman Harvey also stated the council would consider lobbying the State Government to broaden the scope of the statewide plastic bag ban – implemented in 2013 – in response to the council’s groundbreaking decision.
The container ban has reportedly attracted widespread public support, and will be phased in slowly over the next two-and-a-half years.
