This submission expresses our positions on the GPT, which are Tiriti-led and based upon credible evidence from independent science, including Indigenous science and knowledge systems.

Key actions that we support include: the minimisation of virgin plastic and toxic chemical production; designing plastics, as an inherently harmful material, out of our economies as much as possible through the redesign of traditionally plastic products and and plastic-dependent systems; shifting from single-use to reuse; investing in Indigenous and community-led systems of waste prevention; and building capacity for other truly circular solutions such as reuse, refill, repair and compost systems.

The post APPA/TWC Submission to UNEP first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post APPA/TWC Submission to UNEP appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

Liam and Hannah from The Rubbish Trip have been living without a rubbish bin for more than 8 years.

Join Hannah for a tour of their incredible zero waste bathroom and get all the answers to the questions you have about ‘eliminating waste’ in this part of the house.

The post Zero Waste Bathrooms webinar with Hannah Blumhardt from The Rubbish Trip – Plastic Free July 2023 first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post Zero Waste Bathrooms webinar with Hannah Blumhardt from The Rubbish Trip – Plastic Free July 2023 appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

Plastic pollution and throwaway culture are two sides of the same coin and must be tackled together.

Join Hannah Blumhardt of The Rubbish Trip, Reuse Aotearoa, the Zero Waste Network and more in this wānanga/Q&A to hear about why replacing single-use plastic with single-use items made from other materials is a false solution to the plastics crisis.

Hannah Blumhardt, Lead Researcher of Reuse Aotearoa will discuss why reuse systems offer a way to help communities and businesses level up the waste hierarchy and break free from plastic and throwaway culture at the same time.

This wānanga was held as part of #plasticfreejuly2023 and the Break Free From Plastic Asia-Pacific campaign #FalseSolutionsExposed: Busting Myths and Unveiling False Solutions to Plastic Pollution.

The post Wānanga: ‘Reuse as a real solution to plastic pollution with Hannah Blumhardt (Recording) first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post Wānanga: ‘Reuse as a real solution to plastic pollution with Hannah Blumhardt (Recording) appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

Read on for important updates from the Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance, including new single-use plastic bans and an announcement of our upcoming end-of-year hui on December 11-12.

The Newsletter also showcases some of the incredible research and publications our APPA members have been working on over the past several months.

The post APPA Newsletter – Vol 1. / September 2022 first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post APPA Newsletter – Vol 1. / September 2022 appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post APPA Members Co-Write Article for University of Auckland’s ‘The Big Q’ first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post APPA Members Co-Write Article for University of Auckland’s ‘The Big Q’ appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post Plastic pollution discussion on TVNZ Breakfast, with Dr. Trisia Farrelly first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

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(Palmy’s) Plastic Pollution Challenge applies citizen science to find out how much plastic litter is in our urban waterways.

The challenge was launched in Palmerston North in March 2019 and is now expanding through the Manawatū River Catchment.

Plastic Pollution Challenge is a collaboration between Manawatū River Source to Sea, Massey Zero Waste Academy, Rangitāne o Manawatū and Palmerston North City Council.

Click here to follow the story of (Palmy’s) Plastic Pollution Challenge and how to get involved.

The post Plastic Pollution Challenge first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post Plastic Pollution Challenge appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

On Friday 6 December 2019 APPA held our first ever public event – an expert panel discussion at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The event was titled Navigating Plastic Pollution: Understanding the Problem, Finding Solutions.

Listen to the full audio here or scroll down to read a summary.

The panel featured a mixture of APPA members and an external expert and was facilitated by Hannah Blumhardt (The Rubbish Trip, New Zealand Product Stewardship Council and Trustee of APPA). The panelists were:

• Dr Trisia Farrelly (Senior Lecturer and Co-Director, Political Ecology Research Centre, Massey University, Trustee of the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council, Trustee of APPA)
• Jacqui Forbes (Kaihautū Mātua/General Manager of Para Kore)
• Dr Olga Pantos (Research Scientist in the Water and Biowaste group at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research and Co-chair of APPA)
• Camden Howitt (Co-Founder and Coastlines lead of Sustainable Coastlines and APPA member).

Each panellist spoke for 10 minutes, with time at the end for questions.

Dr Farrelly began by describing the problem of plastic pollution, outlining current domestic and international policy solutions, and sounding a word of warning against ‘false solutions’.

Jacqui Forbes described how mātauranga Māori can help us to better understand both the problem of plastic pollution and possible solutions, and how these insights shape the work of Para Kore, an organisation supporting marae, kura and Māori businesses to work towards zero waste.

Dr Pantos took the audience on a deep dive into the world of microplastic pollution, explaining where microplastics come from (including agricultural supplies, construction materials, wastewater treatment plants and Christmas decorations), where microplastic pollution can be found in New Zealand, and the possible health and environmental implications.

Camden Howitt delivered the final talk, discussing how Sustainable Coastlines’ latest project Litter Intelligence allows citizen scientists to gather comprehensive, nationwide data on plastic pollution in New Zealand, and translates these findings into real world solutions for businesses and everyday people.

Some of the key messages that resurfaced throughout the event were:

• The language used to define a problem is important; referring to plastic ‘litter’ rather than ‘pollution’ can individualise the problem and distract from necessary systemic changes.
• Addressing plastic pollution requires big legal & policy changes, domestically and internationally. We should support domestic initiatives under the Waste Minimisation Act, including regulated product stewardship (currently proposed for single-use plastic packaging of consumer goods, beverage containers, and farm plastics, among other things), increasing and expanding the waste disposal levy, and improving waste data collection. We should also support international efforts to curtail plastic pollution, including ratifying the Basel Ban Amendment and supporting a proposed international legally binding plastic pollution treaty (both of which NZ has yet to do).
• Many proposed solutions to our plastic crisis might seem like a good idea at first blush, but when scrutinised more closely, may be ‘false’ solutions. Some of these may offer partial support, but they are referred to as ‘false solutions’ because, alone, they fail to stem the flow of unnecessary and toxic plastics into the economy; may increase exposure of plastics to vulnerable ecologies and organisms; and can undermine other efforts further up the waste hierarchy that hold greater potential to combat the scale of the plastics crisis. When the following are presented as ‘the’ or ‘a key’ solution, they tend to lull us into a false sense of security
  • Recycling single-use plastics (particularly for food and beverage contact materials)
  • Municipal waste-to-energy
  • Plastic concrete aggregate, plastic fence posts, plastic roading
  • Single-use bioplastics (e.g. PLA)
  • Plastic-eating worms and bacteria
  • Switching unnecessary single-use plastics to other single-use materials
  • BPA-free plastic (involving the swapping out of one toxic category of additives for another).
• Different worldviews can help us to analyse the plastic pollution crisis in new ways. Westernised systems of individualism and consumption have contributed to the plastics crisis. Listening to the perspectives coming from te ao Māori could help point us towards really effective, out-of-the box solutions.
• Mātauranga Māori also reminds us that humans are part of the natural world, not separate from it. Addressing the plastic pollution crisis and our waste problems should involve attempts to reconnect us with our environment, to foster a spirit of preserving and regenerating the world’s resources, rather than exploiting them.
• Plastic pollution is pervasive on the micro and nano- level as well as the macro level—microplastics shed from many commonly used items, enter the environment and make their way into soil, the air, ice, waterways and our food. Micro- and nanoplastic pollution has unknown implications for human health and the health of microbial systems.
• Addressing plastic pollution requires a move away from single-use rather than ‘swapping’ one single-use material for another. But it also requires greater mindfulness about what our products are made from or what plastic is recycled into—do these more durable/reusable/recycled products still shed microplastics and/or leach toxins into our food, air, soils, and water?
• Understanding, mapping and addressing plastic pollution is not confined to the realm of academics and politicians. There’s a huge role for grassroots organisations, whether it’s community-based action and awareness-raising through the Para Kore regional model, or through citizen-science data gathering and clean-ups, and individual and business actions, as modelled by Sustainable Coastlines’ Litter Intelligence project.

If you have any thoughts or reflections in response to the panel discussion content, feel free to contribute to the conversation and leave a comment below!

The post Navigating Plastic Pollution in Aotearoa: APPA Expert Panel Discussion December 2019 (post includes full AUDIO) first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post Navigating Plastic Pollution in Aotearoa: APPA Expert Panel Discussion December 2019 (post includes full AUDIO) appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

A growing “vortex of trash” in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean is the largest it’s ever been, according to those who have been there. 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a rubbish and plastic-filled vortex that is more than twice as large as the US state of Texas. 

Algalita South Pacific director Raquelle De Vine recently returned from weeks at sea and said her feelings of helplessness and “total despair” worsen every time she goes back.

“It was alarmingly, significantly worse than what we’ve previously experienced.” 

De Vine travelled to the North Pacific Sub-Tropical Gyre from July 14 – August 4. 

For five days, they sailed through relentless waste without the concentration letting up, she said.

“For hundreds of miles in the central accumulation zone, there was no relief.

“Typically, the plastic comes in waves and gives you a sense that the ocean eco-system has some relief from the plague.

Both of the boat’s propellers were obstructed, despite having specific cages to protect them from entanglement. 

The gyre is a popular feeding place for birds, and plastic is causing blockages in their digestion and eventual starvation, she said.  

Comparison data collected on the voyage showed the pollution was getting worse. 

“We need our leadership to take a more proactive approach, rather than waiting until it is too late to react,” De Vine said. 

“If we fail to act now, we will be forced to adapt to a different ocean.”

As well as the Government, it was up to every single person to make change, she said. 

A large amount of rubbish was commercial fishing debris like buoys, nets and ropes. 

The voyage, led by the Algalita Marine Research and Education organisation, was the eleventh to the gyre. 

De Vine said the Fox River Landfill disaster, which required months of clean up, was a clear example of leaders waiting until it was too late before acting. 

However, it was positive to see the Government’s recent announcement for mandatory product stewardship schemes, which could make manufacturers responsible for their own waste. 

– As published in Stuff Environment on August 28 2019 –

https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/115333836/the-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch-is-the-worst-its-ever-been

The post The Pacific ocean ‘Garbage Patch’ is the worst it’s ever been first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

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• Tyres
• Electrical and electronic products
• Agrichemicals and their containers
• Refrigerants
• Farm plastics
• Packaging (including single-use plastic packaging and beverage packaging).

Product stewardship schemes make those who design, manufacture, sell, use and dispose of a product responsible for ensuring the product is effectively reduced, reused, recycled or recovered, and for managing any harm that product causes when it becomes waste. Such schemes can take the burden off consumers, councils and the environment to manage the harmful and costly effects of unregulated products.

This consultation is a big deal and could mean big strides forward in reducing plastic pollution in Aotearoa. You can check out the consultation document and submission form on the Ministry for the Environnment website. Submissions are open until 4 October 2019 and we encourage everyone to make a submission.

If you feel like you need more information to help you submit, check out these resources produced by members of APPA:

• The Rubbish Trip’s three infosheets that summarise key content from the 56-page consultation document.
• WasteMINZ’s What You Need to Know about the Government’s Priority Product Stewardship Consultation, which summarises the consultation and covers some key points for possible consideration in submissions.
• The Rubbish Trip and the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council are holding an Online Live Webinar and Q&A on Thursday 5 September 2019, 7-8pm. The webinar will cover the basics of the consultation content & some key concepts to consider, before opening the floor to questions and answers to anyone in attendance. Don’t miss out!

The post Submit on the Govt consultation to regulate harmful plastic products, including packaging first appeared on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.

The post Submit on the Govt consultation to regulate harmful plastic products, including packaging appeared first on The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance.