00:00 Working mother Nadine Claydon is just home from her weekly shop.
00:07 Obviously everything's covered in plastic. We always buy these ones because the pairs are a little bit smaller.
00:18 She does what she can to recycle and food scraps go into the compost.
00:25 But since the Red Cycle soft plastic program collapsed last year, she's been left with a lot more plastic waste.
00:31 I do feel guilty constantly, to the point where there was a time where I wasn't buying any meat because there were so many meat trays and so much plastic.
00:42 A lot of plastic packaging has symbols showing it's recyclable. The problem is only 18% is actually being processed.
00:50 Australia simply doesn't have enough facilities to do it.
00:54 And the vast, vast majority has gone to landfill and some of it's ended up as litter in the ocean.
00:59 In June, the federal government foreshadowed new regulations to force food and packaging industries, including the major supermarkets, to take responsibility for the plastic.
01:09 Some industry players believe a tax or levy could be brought in for companies that don't comply.
01:16 So in the future, packaging will have to be designed to minimise waste and be reusable or recyclable.
01:24 This company's already taking responsibility by producing packaging and recycling it.
01:29 It recently opened a plastic bottle recycling plant in New South Wales, with another to open in Melbourne.
01:36 We're bringing on 75,000 tonnes of new post-consumer recycling capacity to Australia. Really exciting.
01:44 But much more infrastructure is needed across the country.
01:47 Somebody's got to want to recycle it to start off with. It's got to be profitable to recycle it.
01:52 The federal government says $690 million is being invested by governments and industry on recycling infrastructure.
02:00 Would you like a pear?
02:02 Shoppers will be asked for their views on how to reduce packaging waste before the end of the year.
02:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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