Single-Use Plastics

Mrs POWER (Elder) (15:04): My question is for the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister please update the house about the progress that the government is making towards the phase-out of single-use plastics in South Australia and how plastic-free precincts are leading the way?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:04): I thank the member for Elder for her interest in this topic. It's always good to be able to update this place on our progress towards banning a whole range of single-use plastics in South Australia, which will occur in various tranches throughout the next couple of years. That is a policy that is progressing exceptionally well at the moment. We have received a huge amount of positive feedback from the conservation community, from the business community, which recognises that their customers are interested in seeing this, and from the broader community as well.

This really is a policy that it is time for and it is a policy laden with opportunity for our state. We know that this policy has sent a substantial market signal to South Australian businesses and businesses at a national level as well, a market signal that says to those businesses, 'Come to South Australia and be the place that is the manufacturing epicentre for alternatives to single-use plastics.' We know that is already happening. We know that businesses here in South Australia and businesses interstate are looking to South Australia because of that leadership.

They are looking to South Australia because of our cultural heritage in this area, extending back decades to when we first introduced our container deposit legislation, to when we banned the use of single-use plastic shopping bags at point of purchase and, in more recent times, the great progress we made towards driving down the amount of waste produced in this state and our recycling and re-use levels, particularly the composting side of things as well.

We know that this is a policy that has the capacity and the potential to stimulate innovation. We know that programs like the program we are running in partnership with Innovise, the start-up and entrepreneurial organisation, is identifying start-up businesses that are undertaking research and development and product development in this space and providing them with the support to create jobs and get alternatives to single-use plastics and alternatives to other forms of tricky and troublesome waste out of South Australia and finding ways to replace them in ways that create jobs here for South Australians.

We have Green Industries SA support sitting alongside industry in South Australia, particularly through the grants program. In December, $3.3 million worth of recycling infrastructure grants were awarded to 20 projects. That will create 30.5 full-time equivalent jobs, and they won't be one-off jobs: they will be sustained into the future, and that is because of that $3.3 million of grants that we provided to innovative organisations to come up with waste solutions.

We also know that that grant scheme will provide $9.6 million across the total value of projects and will divert almost 19,000 tonnes per annum of waste from landfill. Our single-use plastic ban is leading the way. It's sending that strong market signal and it's providing case studies for organisations not just here in South Australia but right across the nation, and in fact the world, when it comes to dealing with our waste, creating a circular economy and creating jobs in the process.