On 30 November 2011, the Standing Council on Environment and Water reinforced its commitment to addressing community concerns about packaging waste and litter by agreeing to release the Packaging Impacts Consultation RIS and associated documents for public consultation. The release of the Consultation RIS is a key step in the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) process for considering appropriate action to address a problem, including national regulation.
Packaging Impacts Consultation RIS
The Packaging Impacts Consultation RIS was released on 7 December 2011 for a three month public consultation period, closing on 30 March 2012. During this period, written submissions were invited and public forums were held in all capital cities and three regional cities.
Information from the public forums and submissions will help inform policy development later in 2012. The COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water would like to thank all those who provided submissions and attended public consultation sessions.
Consultation summary
Packaging Impacts Decision Regulation Impact Statement
On the 24 August 2012, the Standing Council on Environment and Water agreed to push ahead with work to find better ways to manage Australia’s packaging waste, noting the strong response to the Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) released on 7 December 2011.
Ministers agreed to develop a Decision RIS to undertake a more detailed analysis of the seven options contained in the Consultation RIS including regional and other distributional impacts.Options include a container deposit model proposed by Boomerang Alliance, and an industry co-regulatory stewardship scheme proposed by members of the beverage and packaging industries and Keep Australia Beautiful.
In response to consultation feedback, Ministers also requested that three further options be included for analysis in the Decision RIS:
- an industry co-regulatory stewardship scheme focussing on beverage containers only;
- an approach similar to the Australian Packaging Covenant, with a substantial increase in industry funding for initiatives, and
- a container deposit model based on the South Australian system.
The Australian, state and territory governments released the Packaging Impacts Decision Regulation Impact Statement on 19 December 2014.
Options Paper
A policy options paper has been developed, incorporating views from key stakeholders, that provides a detailed description of the ten different options under evaluation.