The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age previously confirmed that Indonesia had returned at least nine containers to Australia in the past month because they contained contaminated waste that could not be recycled.
The sheer number of containers being returned to Australia, which was confirmed on Wednesday by Indonesia's customs officials, highlighted the massive volume of plastic waste Australia has been sending offshore for recycling. Read more about this here:
With China and other countries now doing the same, plastic is becoming a mounting problem for Australia and consumers are no longer in the dark about where their waste is ending up.
What does this represent for the promotional products industry?
It means that we as promotional products experts, need to start thinking of more sustainable alternatives and not merely "green-washing" environmentally-problematic products (i.e. sticking a brown label on a plastic bottle).
Being based in beautiful Noosa, Queensland we have a special affinity with our oceans, beaches, waterways and wildlife. So here at Promotherapy, we are working hard on a set of sustainability targets that will help keep the promotional products industry going strong through this time of change and after all, we welcome this change - it's long overdue!
More modern, sustainable promotional product alternatives don't always have to cost the earth and in fact, may just end up saving it.
Read more about our sustainability targets here:
https://promotherapy.com.au/pages/sustainability-targets-2019