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Further implications

The move away from single use plastic products is growing rapidly within Australia and across the world. On June 26, 2018 a Senate inquiry into the waste and recycling industry in Australia recommended a ban on single-use plastics such as takeaway food containers and plastic-lined coffee cups by 2023. Australia.

In the same week major supermarkets across Australia stopped supplying free, single use plastic bags, while there were outright bans on free plastic bags at shops in Queensland and Western Australia.

The potential success of such measures is apparently shown by recent developments in the United Kingdom. A report released in Britain in April, 2018, indicated a significant drop in the plastic bag pollution on the seabeds around the United Kingdom. The scientists behind the new research at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) have suggested the trend they observed on the sea floor could be partly a result of changes in the distribution and use of plastic bags in Britain. Charges in supermarket carrier bag policies have led to an 80 per cent drop in plastic bag use across England. Dr Thomas Maes, a marine litter scientist at CEFAS and the report's lead author, has stated, 'It is encouraging to see that efforts by all of society, whether the public, industry, NGOs or government to reduce plastic bags are having an effect.'

Such apparent success has been used as an indicator of what concerted action can achieve.
While these are valuable developments, it is important they are thoughtfully adopted so that they do in fact help to achieve the reduction in environmental degradation that is intended. Two concerns that have been flagged are firstly the need to adopt changes in a manner which respects the needs of all within national communities and secondly the need to acknowledge is that consumption behaviours are only part of the solution to the problem.
Recent bans on the use of plastic straws have revealed the danger of imposing a prohibition without thoughtful consideration of the potential utility of the products being banned. In an opinion piece published in The Conversation on June 29, 2018, Paul Harvey, a Environmental Science researcher at Macquarie University, stated, 'We are rapidly reaching the point at which the relevant question is not "which plastics can we do without?", but "which single-use plastics do we genuinely need?" Harvey went on to warn that single use plastics play a necessary in medicine and scientific research where they help to maintain hygiene and prevent contamination.

Reactions from disability advocates around the world to recent bans imposed in different jurisdictions on the use of plastic straws have indicated what can occur if the needs of a key section of the community are not properly considered when a ban is imposed. Kathryn Carroll, a policy analyst with the Center for Disability Rights in Washington, has stated, 'The basic premise of the community's concern is that when blanket policies like these are put in place, they don't take into account the individual needs of people with disabilities. While we want to protect the environment like everybody else, that's our concern.'

What is particularly concerning is that the valid arguments of disability advocates regarding their need to use plastic straws, may serve to fuel those who are opposed for less valid grounds - a straw ban is an inconvenience or a straw ban may be a government infringement of individual liberty or lead to a reduction in profit or an increase in cost. There has been a pushback against straw bans around the world, partly motivated by concern for disability rights, but also prompted by less justifiable concerns.

The second concern prompted by the adoption of partially symbolic conservation measures that may not achieve the ends claimed for them, is that they can distract from undertaking more significant actions. One irreducible fact of modern consumption patterns is that plastics are used for some functions that are not going to be easily performed by other products. Addressing the problems caused by plastic consumption is not going to be solved exclusively by bans or using different materials. A large part of the issue has to be resolved by addressing the manner in which plastic waste is disposed of and managed. Kate O'Neill , Associate Professor, Global Environmental Politics, University of California, Berkeley, has stated, 'Upgrading materials recycling facilities and expanding domestic markets for plastic scrap is an obvious priority but will require large-scale investments.' O'Neill's recognition of the investment required both by governments and companies in order to develop technological solutions that will result in better waste management is important. It is easier and less expensive for both governments and corporations to ban or withdraw products than it is for them to develop better waste management processes. The role of the private citizen is not just to manage his or her own behaviour, so as to avoid the use of wasteful, polluting plastic products, but also to demand of governments and corporations that they help to develop systemic solutions.