Civil Liability (BYO Containers) Amendment Bill – Second Reading speech
Thursday 16 June 2022
S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (17:51): I rise to speak in support of the Civil Liability (BYO Containers) Amendment Bill. This is a bill to permit consumers to bring their own re-usable containers to businesses and to take away their food in such. This bill will remove the frustration of so many consumers who want to do the right thing but also, importantly, will be protecting businesses and removing them from any liability.
I have long been a keen advocate of sustainability and also with regard to food services. In fact, a few years ago, as a regular patron of the food court at the Adelaide Central Market, I noticed that a lot of the outlets there were starting to serve all their meals in takeaway containers, plastic containers, where it used to be crockery. I investigated this by speaking to a number of the small business owners there.
What had happened was that the landlord had taken away the central kitchen and none of them had any space in the back of their outlets to do their own dishes, so they thought the only opportunity then was to bring in single-use plastics. I took it upon myself to run a petition and walk around the food court of the market to put a little bit of pressure on the landlord to bring back the central kitchen so that we could have a sustainable food service in the food court of the Adelaide Central Market.
Businesses still have a choice and they will be able to choose whether or not they allow consumers to bring their own containers, but I suspect that consumers will be very keen to attend to practices that enable them to bring their own containers. This bill is an important step towards reducing single-use items. Whilst so many individuals and so many households do whatever they can to protect the environment, there are always those who do not do the right thing, and so we find that takeaway food and beverage packaging makes up more than one-third of litter found on our beaches.
We know that half of all plastic which is produced is designed only for single use. This bill will help us reduce that significantly. We know that food packaging waste carries an enormous cost for the environment. The production of food packaging uses a significant amount of water and emits greenhouse gases and, once disposed of, contributes to large amounts of landfill as well as ending up in our waterways and on our beaches.
South Australia has long been a leader in this space and, in 2009, we were the first state to implement a ban on lightweight check-out style plastic bags, but there is still much to be done. We were the first state to ban single-use plastic straws, cutlery and stirrers from 1 March 2021, and then from 1 March 2022 the ban was expanded to polystyrene cups, bowls, plates and clamshell containers.
I encourage all in our South Australian community to embrace the opportunities that this bill brings and also the fact that there is no obligation on businesses. They will no longer assume any liability and can have confidence moving forward to enable this practice to occur. I commend the bill to the house.
