Australia’s Packaging Problem Could Be Solved in Five Minutes

Australia doesn’t have a packaging problem because of a lack of regulation. It has a packaging problem because existing regulation is poorly applied, barely enforced, and largely misunderstood.

The National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure 2011 (NEPM) already provides a legal framework for packaging compliance. However, its language is ambiguous, and its implementation weak. A review of the NEPM—completed and submitted to the federal government in 2021—proposed much-needed clarity, removing the loopholes that currently allow businesses to delay meaningful action by simply having “a plan to have a plan.”

Yet even in its current form, the NEPM is legally binding. Compliance isn’t just an environmental or sustainability issue; it is a legal one. And this is where the true disconnect lies.

In many businesses, sustainability teams raise compliance risks, only to be overruled by finance teams focused on short-term costs. But this isn’t a budgeting discussion—it is a matter of corporate governance. Directors of companies are legally required to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations, including the NEPM. The problem is that most company boards remain unaware of this obligation.

As a director, I don’t get to choose which laws I follow—ASIC requires compliance with all of them. And the NEPM should be treated with the same seriousness as superannuation, insurance, and workplace safety.

This is why I believe the packaging problem could be solved in a five-minute conversation. If Environment Minister Murray Watt walked down the corridor to Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and said, “Let’s make directors aware that the NEPM falls under ASIC-regulated obligations,” the shift would be immediate. Once directors understand their legal risk, action will follow, because the consequences of non-compliance are too great to ignore.

The next logical step is for governments and businesses to support and strengthen product stewardship programs. Protect the good programs already in place. Encourage procurement of verified domestically recovered and recycled plastics and components. These are the “pull factors” that create market demand and stimulate private investment.

And here is the good news: if compliance is treated as a business obligation, government won’t need to spend billions in subsidies. Businesses will do what is require, because they must.

The solution is not technical or financial. It’s structural and it’s legal. And it begins with leadership that understands how governance, compliance, and environmental responsibility intersect.

Five minutes. One conversation. That’s all it would take to begin solving Australia’s packaging crisis.

Stephen Richards
Managing Director
Big Bag Recovery