Policy Framework
National Action Plan
● Australia’s Circular Economy Framework (2024)
In December 2024, Australia’s Circular Economy Framework was released. It provides the blueprint for Australia’s circular economy transition. This framework is the first time Australia has had a national policy which sets clear priorities and targets to keep materials in our economy for as long as possible, while reducing waste.
The overarching goal of ‘doubling the circularity of the economy by 2035’ is supported by 3 targets: reducing material footprint by 10 per cent; lifting materials productivity by 30 per cent; and safely recovering 80 per cent of our resources.
Achieving a circular economy will require coordinated efforts from all levels of government and across all sectors of the economy.
● National Waste Policy Action Plan (2024)
The National Waste Policy Action Plan guides Australia’s investment and national efforts to better manage waste and recover resources in support of a circular economy to 2030 and beyond. The plan includes seven ambitious targets that are supported through the delivery of actions by all Australian governments.
Two targets in the plan have a specific focus on addressing plastic waste exports (Target 1) and the phase out of problematic and unnecessary plastics (Target 5).
Australia’s environment ministers have established a roadmap to harmonise kerbside collection systems that sets out a minimum set of items that can be collected and recycled across the country. The roadmap provides national guiding principles to inform the inclusion of future items, including soft plastics, to the minimum lists through periodic reviews. This delivery of the roadmap will support Australia’s transition to a circular economy by reducing the volume of recyclable material that goes to landfill.
Legal Framework
● Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act)
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) lists injury and fatality to vertebrate marine life caused by ingestion of, or entanglement in, harmful marine debris as a key threatening process.
Australia’s Threat Abatement Plan for the impacts of marine debris on the vertebrate wildlife of Australia’s coasts and oceans incorporates actions needed to abate the listed key threatening process. The threat abatement plan includes a range of management approaches for research and monitoring, public outreach and education, preventing and reducing debris from land-based sources as well as addressing marine-based sources and removing accumulated marine debris from the coastal marine environment.
● Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020 (RAWR Act)
➡ ● Recycling and Waste Reduction (Export—Waste Plastic) Rules 2021 (Waste Plastic Rules)
The RAWR Act provides a national framework to regulate the export of waste materials, and to manage their impact on the environment, and human health. Through subordinate legislation, the Act implements the export ban on unprocessed waste plastic, paper, glass, and tyres agreed by Commonwealth, state, and territory governments in March 2020.
The Waste Plastic Rules under the RAWR Act implement the ban on export of unprocessed waste plastic in two phases, through a licensing and declaration scheme. Phase 1 of the export ban was in place from 1 July 2021 until 30 June 2022. This required licence holders to sort plastic into a single polymer or resin prior to export for further processing, recycling, and re-manufacture. On 1 July 2022, phase 2 of the export ban commenced. This required licence holders to further process sorted waste in Australia prior to export, for example into flakes.
The Waste Plastic Rules help ensure that Australia takes responsibility for its plastic waste and promotes the development of our domestic recycling sector and circular economy. By ensuring we only export properly processed waste, we are preventing these materials from being dumped overseas, reducing harm to the environment and human health.
● Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1989 (Hazardous Waste Act)
Australia is a signatory to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (Basel Convention) and implements its obligations through the Hazardous Waste Act.
The Basel Convention was amended from 1 January 2021 to enhance controls on exports, imports and transboundary movement of waste plastics, so that impacts on human health and the environment are minimised. The amendments introduced a broad category of waste plastics that are to be subject to prior informed consent procedures, with certain exceptions.
The Hazardous Waste Act was amended in 2021 to incorporate the Basel Convention plastic amendments into Australian law. The Hazardous Waste Act operates in tandem with the RAWR Act to ensure the optimal environmental outcome in relation to waste plastics.
● National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure 2011
The Australian Government is committed to reforming the regulation of the co-regulatory packaging system to increase sustainable packaging design and recyclability that will support a circular economy for packaging. The Government is considering mandatory packaging design requirements and setting minimum recycled content thresholds to drive end markets for recycled content. The government is also working on reducing packaging waste, including restricting problematic and excessive packaging.
The reform presents an opportunity to strengthen the domestic regulatory framework and ensure that all packaging available in Australia is designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed and safely in line with circular economy principles. Increasing the effectiveness of the packaging framework will have consequences for marine plastic litter by increasing product sustainability and plastic collection, recycling and reuse.
● Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983; Marine Order 95 (Marine pollution prevention – garbage) 2018
Australia is a Party to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), which among other things, prohibits the discharge of plastic into the sea. Australia implements its obligations through the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 (POTS Act) and Marine Order 95 (Marine pollution prevention – garbage) 2018 (MO95).
Under the MARPOL vessels are also required to maintain records of all garbage that is generated and disposed by the vessel, including plastics, through a Garbage Management Plan and a Garbage Record Book.
Additionally, MARPOL obliges Member States ensure that adequate reception facilities are available in ports and terminals to receive all types of waste, including plastic, generated by a ship during normal operations.
● Plastic Recycling
The Australian Plastic Flows and Fates reporting shows Australia’s plastic consumption, flow, recovery, and recycling from 2000 to 2021/22.
● Packaging Targets
The National Packaging Targets have driven systemic change to how packaging is designed, collected, recovered, and reprocessed, and are increasing recovery rates. The diversity of plastic materials and rapid innovation in materials and formats to deliver functionality creates ongoing challenges for sortation and reprocessing systems.
The Australian Government is taking a range of actions on waste and recycling that will support industry to deliver the Targets, including:
- Funding under the Recycling Modernisation Fund to increase Australia’s onshore material processing infrastructure capacity
- Working with state and territory governments to phase-out of problematic and unnecessary single-use plastics under the National Plastics Plan
- Supporting the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) as a world-leading educational tool to help households recycle correctly, including by investing $5 million to assist 20,000 small to medium enterprises improve packaging sustainability and labelling by adopting the ARL
- Product stewardship schemes to increase plastic recycling rates
The Australian Government is committed to reforming the regulation of the co-regulatory packaging system to increase sustainable packaging design and recyclability that will support a circular economy for packaging. The Government is considering mandatory packaging design requirements and setting minimum recycled content thresholds to drive end markets for recycled content. The government is also working on reducing packaging waste, including problematic and excessive packaging.
● Australasian Recycling Label (ARL)
The Government supports the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) as a world-leading educational tool to help households recycle correctly, including by investing $5 million to assist 20,000 small to medium enterprises improve packaging sustainability and labelling by adopting the ARL to increase plastic recycling rates. In 2024 over 350,000 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) carried the ARL, and in Australia and New Zealand this is a growth of 95,000 SKUs since 2023.
● Packaging Regulatory Reform
Packaging regulatory reform provides an opportunity to address particularly challenging packaging types, such as soft plastics, through improved collection and recycling and product stewardship approaches. At the June 2024 Environment Ministers’ Meeting, Australia’s environment ministers considered the growing challenge of soft plastics, and the slow progress to re-establish in-store collection. As agreed by Environment ministers, a pathway to get soft plastics collected out of landfill has been developed. This considers different collection approaches across metropolitan, regional and remote locations, and available processing capacity in Australia.
● Plastic Use Reduction
NWPAP Target 5: Continued phase out of problematic and unnecessary plastics
● Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI)
The Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) provides high-quality data that is crucial for informing both national and global plastic pollution policies. AMDI’s standardised monitoring framework supports the National Plastics Plan (NPP) by offering evidence-based insights into debris trends, enabling the setting of measurable targets, evaluating policy interventions, and prioritising areas for action.
The AMDI Framework provides critical data for policy development, target setting, and evaluation at both national and international levels, strengthening Australia’s leadership in marine debris prevention and contributing to global efforts to combat plastic pollution.
The AMDI Land Sea Source Index
To determine the likely origins of debris for coastal monitoring sites, the AMDI Database categorises items according to the Land Sea Source Index (LSSI).
This index uses information about the site and the physical properties of the item (form, material, buoyancy, etc.) to calculate the proportions of debris that are likely to come from onshore and offshore sources.
For example, on Christmas Island, part of Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories, marine
debris data from January - December 2024 reveals that (by item count) sea-based
sources contributed the majority of debris, with 87% likely originating from the ocean,
while only 13% came from land-based sources.
Indicators and/or Targets
Technical Standards, Guidelines and Methodologies
Measures
| Measures across Value Chain | |||||||
| Actions for encouraging sustainable / circular product design (example: improved durability, reparability, recyclability, reduction of material use per product…etc.) | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s Circular Economy Framework provides national direction on transitioning towards a circular economy, including improving design and better collaboration across the supply chain. Further information on Australia’s Circular Economy Framework is provided in Question 2. |
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| Policy actions for encouraging plastic alternatives, recycled materials at production stage. | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan includes actions that promote the use of recycled materials. |
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| Steps taken towards restricting microplastics in products. | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan includes actions to phase out microbeads from rinse off products. |
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| Reduce single-use plastic (shopping bags, straws etc.) by regulations or voluntary measures (such as ban, levy, others) | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan includes actions that promote the reduction of single-use plastics. |
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| Introduce Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) | - | ||||||
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Specific Measures:
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| Improve waste management and recycling system | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan includes actions to improve waste manage and recycling systems. |
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| Promoting plastic waste re-use, recycling and recovery opportunities | Yes | ||||||
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The National Circular Economy Framework provides guidance on transitioning towards a circular economy, including the reuse and remanufacturing of secondary materials. |
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| Install capturing trap/filter on drainage/river | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s Urban Rivers and Catchments Program is restoring the health of our urban waterways for native plants, animals, and local communities. |
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| Conduct clean-up activities in rivers/ wetlands/ beaches/ coasts/ coral reefs/ sea floor, involving local communities involving local communities | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan includes actions to support communities to clean up waste (including plastics) and reduce plastics and other wastes in our oceans.
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| Issue-specific Measures | |||||||
| <1> Abandoned, Lost and Discarded Fishing Gear (ALDFG) | |||||||
| Taken/to be taken National Level Action and/or Community Level Action on Clean sea initiatives including ghost net retrieval, ocean-bound plastics etc. | Yes | ||||||
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The Ghost Nets Initiative
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| Taken actions for preventing abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) being generated. | - | ||||||
| Created/creating collection/recycling mechanism for ALDFG | Yes | ||||||
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The Ghost Nets Initiative has supported projects investigating recycling pathways and technologies for remote communities collecting ghost nets and marine debris. Trials are underway looking at recycling technologies that may be used including pyrolysis and remanufacturing into green ceramics and composite materials for local construction uses. |
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| <2> Port Waste Reception For waste management in ports, please provide details regarding their solid waste management practices/facilities including: |
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| Whether there is an applicable legal framework | Yes | ||||||
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Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 (domestic implementing legislation for MARPOL) |
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| The institution(s) responsible for (or playing a central role in, if voluntary action) managing the waste from ships? (example: port management authority, fishers' association...etc.) | Yes | ||||||
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Australian Maritime Safety Authority, and MOU with Tangaroa Blue |
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| Whether ports possess waste reception facilities/systems to handle solid waste from ships, the volume of waste collected and the percentage of ports with waste reception facilities? | Yes | ||||||
| The handling procedures for each distinct waste stream once onshore. | - | ||||||
| Partnership and Innovation | |||||||
| Boost multi-stakeholder involvement and awareness-raising | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan includes actions to improve consumer awareness and support business and industry. |
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| Encourage/ Incentivize action by private sector companies to reduce/ sustainably manage their plastic waste. | Yes | ||||||
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Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan includes actions to avoid business waste and encourage innovation. |
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| Encourage public awareness on MPL issues through formal education system and/or curriculum for | - | ||||||
| Promote innovative solutions through Research & Development (e.g., subsidy program, investment fund etc.) | Yes | ||||||
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The National Product Stewardship Investment Fund provides financial support to set up new product stewardship arrangements or improve existing ones. It also funds the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence. |
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| Monitoring, Data Management, Understanding Flow of Plastics/MPL | |||||||
| Conduct Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of plastic products. What are the challenges if LCA is not conducted? | Yes | ||||||
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LCAs are being conducted by states and territories for selected plastic products being considered for regulatory action. |
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| Conduct Material Flow Analysis (MFA) on plastics. What are the challenges if MFA is not conducted? | Yes | ||||||
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The annual Australian Plastic Flows and Fates reporting shows Australia’s plastic consumption, flow, recovery, and recycling from 2000 to 2021 22. |
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| Conduct monitoring / estimation / scientific research on leakage of plastics/microplastics to the natural environment and/or flow of ocean surface. What are the challenges if these actions are not conducted? |
No | ||||||
| International Collaboration | |||||||
| Participate in international cooperation through international organizations, multi-national groups, etc. | Yes | ||||||
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Australia is an active participant through multilateral organisations and forums such as the G20, UNEP, IPBES, IUCN, and more. |
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| Support target region by your international cooperation initiatives/projects: South, Central and Southeast Asia | Yes | ||||||
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Target Regions: Oceania
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Challenges
■ Recycling System Improvement
Specific Challenges:
Limited recycling capacity to manage problematic hard to recycle materials like soft plastics.
While there has been significant recent investment in reprocessing capacity, capacity shortages remain for some materials, including where low volumes make reprocessing unviable.
The Australian Government is working to reform Australia’s packaging regulations which will help us tackle the plastic problem.
Strengthened regulation provides an opportunity to ensure plastic packaging is designed for circularity and will drive the uptake of recycled content, reducing reliance on virgin materials. It will drive industry investment, minimise waste, and support circular economy outcomes for plastic packaging including soft plastics packaging.
To boost plastic recycling rates, the government committed additional funding to the Recycling Modernisation Fund for hard to recycle plastics.
■ Data Collection Related to Waste in General
Specific Challenges:
States and territories collect data in various formats and parameters, based on their Environment Protection Agency (EPA). Data sharing is limited due to confidentiality and can be difficult to aggregate at a national level.
Progress underway to streamline data collection with the use of reporting standards, and improve data sharing between the various levels of government (Local, State/Territory/Commonwealth)
Best Practices
Private Sector Initiative
The Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) is a world-leading consumer education tool which helps households recycle and assists brand owners to design recyclable packaging. The Australian Government has invested $5 million to support small-to-medium enterprises to implement the ARL on their packaging, in turn giving households greater guidance on how to recycle and keeping more plastics out of landfill. In 2024 over 350,000 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) carried the ARL.
Futher Information
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/exports
Product stewardship in Australia - DCCEEW
Contact Details
Name: Fleur Downard
Position: Director, International Environment and UN section
Division: International Environment, Reef and Ocean division
Organization: Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Email:Fleur.Downard@dcceew.gov.au

