'IT'S NOT MY BAG BABY' - RESPONSIBILITY FOR PACKAGING AND THE NATIONAL PACKAGING COVENANT

NICOLE SOMMER

ABSTRACT:

Consumer behaviour in Australia has recently undergone a change in relation to plastic bag use. Where people once would carry a single-use plastic bag, many now tote reusable 'green' bags. This shift stems from a wider strategy seeking to alter the attitude of consumers and industry to the management of packaging, its environmental impacts, and waste disposal generally. Central to this, is the question of who should be responsible for the environmental impacts of packaging, particularly the impacts at the end-of-life or disposal stage, and how responsibility may limit overall impact. In Australia, the National Packaging Covenant and its supporting National Environment Protection Measure regulate the environmental impacts of packaging. The Covenant is a co-regulatory agreement, signed by members of the packaging industry and all levels of government, which aims to reduce the environmental impacts of packaging at all stages of the lifecycle of packaging. The Covenant adopts the principle of product stewardship, which essentially 'shares' this responsibility amongst all participants. This article analyses the effectiveness of the regulatory strategy of the Covenant to ensure compliance and improvements within a flexible scheme. It questions the appropriateness of product stewardship by comparison to the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility and its successful implementation in Germany. Whilst the Covenant ascribes waste-disposal and recycling infrastructure responsibility inequitably to local government, EPR consigns responsibility for the end-of-life of packaging to the producer, the creator of waste.