The Greens have announced a plan for a National Repairability Star Rating label system to overhaul the vicious cycle of production and waste that it says is straining the planet’s resources and overwhelming its waste management capabilities.
To ensure products with embedded batteries – such as smartphones, scooters, children’s toys, portable chargers, vacuums and electric toothbrushes – are safely recycled when they reach their end of life, the Greens are also pushing for a national deposit scheme to cut the growing risk of battery-related fires across Australia’s recycling streams.
“The current vicious cycle of production and waste is straining our planet’s resources and overwhelming its waste management capabilities,” said Greens spokesperson for waste and recycling, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson.
“It is a toxic triumph of capitalism that companies profit off selling cheaply-made products, such as household appliances, that are designed to be replaced rather than repaired.
“We can’t recycle our way out of this crisis. The best way to reduce waste is to stop it being created in the first place. This means extending the lifecycle of products through reuse and repair initiatives and creating secondary markets for recycled materials, in addition to banning hard-to-recycle materials.”
He said that, in a circular economy, everything is built for its end-of-life purpose, and everything has value – but in order to achieve this governments need to encourage, incentivise and enshrine the right to repair the things we own.
A National Repairability Star Rating label system will help inform and empower consumer product knowledge and choice – but we need more Greens in parliament to make it possible, and to fight major parties’ obsession with corporate profit at the expense of the planet.
“Much of what is currently considered ‘waste’ is actually a valuable resource disposed of incorrectly, and anything else is a design flaw – but this problem has a political solution,” said Greens spokesperson for the environment, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
“Governments must hold big corporations to account to build a true circular economy where waste no longer exists because all necessary production has value and stays in a closed-loop system. A National Repairability Star Rating label system will go a long way to achieve this.
South Australia has been at the forefront of tackling Australia’s waste and recycling crisis – our Container Deposit Scheme has led the way for 45 years and is recognised as one of the most effective in the world, she said.
In addition to being the first Australian state to introduce a 10-cent deposit on beverage containers; in 2009 SA was the first to ban single-use shopping bags; and in 2021 became the first to ban plastic straws. South Australia would be the perfect place for an e-waste deposit scheme trial because people here get it, according to Hansen-Young.