In this episode, Lindy Hughson, managing editor & publisher of PKN Packaging News, talks with Brooke Donnelly, chief executive officer of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), and sustainability consultant Dr Helen Lewis, about Australia's progress towards the 2025 national packaging targets.

We start the episode with a review of the Collective Impact study and its recently released report on Australia's progress towards the 2025 targets. This includes the economic impact of sending potentially recyclable/reusable products to landfill and a breakdown of materials sent to landfill to identify areas where new efforts are required.

Brooke and Helen discuss the current progress towards each target and differences in reductions achieved by material, along with the impacts from increased consumption, areas for improvement and a breakdown of the main challenges to consider for each target. This leads to a review of the efforts required to meet the targets, including driving packaging product design, increased education and new or improved industrial mechanisms for processing materials.

We then move on to the response to the report from industry and various interest groups, the benefits achieved to date from the benchmarking and statistics gathered to date, the need for alternative systems to drive recycling and possible methods for incentivising the use of recycled content over virgin materials.

The episode wraps with acknowledgements of the progress made to date, the willingness to change from consumers and industry along with the hope this provides that we will meet the targets in 2025.

The Collective Impact report document can be found at: documents.packagingcovenant.org.au/public-documents/APCO%20Collective%20Impact%20Report

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The PKN Podcast is produced by Southern Skies Media on behalf of PKN Packaging News, owned and published by Yaffa Media.

The views of the people featured on this podcast do not necessarily represent the views of PKN Packaging News, Yaffa Media, or the guest’s employer. The contents are copyright by Yaffa Media.

If you wish to use any of this podcast’s audio, please contact PKN Packaging News via their website www.packagingnews.com.au or send an email to editor@packagingnews.com.au.

MC: Grant McHerron

Host: Lindy Hughson

Editor: Domenic Pernasilici

Producer: Steve Visscher

PKN Packaging News - © 2021