Australia's environment ministers have decided on a draft timeline for the national waste export ban, but the question remains - how will it work?
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Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley led the meeting in Adelaide on Friday, which was the first and only time this year all the leaders have met.
The ban will apply to all waste that isn't being turned into a valuable material overseas.
"The next steps are - how do we do it," Ms Ley told reporters after the meeting.
Glass will be the first product to stay onshore, beginning from July next year.
Mixed plastics will be banned one year later and tyres by December 2021. The rest - including paper and cardboard - will no longer be sent overseas by the end of June 2022.
Victoria's Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio is calling on the federal government to sign a cheque to ensure progress can happen.
"Victoria is already investing $135 million in the sector and we need to see Commonwealth funding, fast," she said.
The ministers were tasked with developing the timeline after Prime Minister Scott Morrison met with premiers in August.
The government was forced to come up with a new way to deal with Australia's waste after China imposed a ban on foreign waste imports last year, causing a domino effect in other Asian nations.
The federal government put $20 million towards growing Australia's recycling industry and starting the transition to banning waste exports.
The ministers on Friday signed off on Australia's Strategy for Nature 2019-2030, but environmental groups say it lacks detail on how to stop species from going extinct.
The strategy covers three broad goals - connecting Australians with nature, caring for nature, and sharing and building knowledge.
Wilderness Society's Suzanne Milthorpe says it relies heavily on "motherhood statements" at the expense of measurable actions to recover native species or plans to deal with the causes of extinction.
James Trezise from the Australian Conservation Foundation is pleased to see the strategy includes an accountability framework, working groups and four-yearly reporting.
"Disappointingly the strategy doesn't set a national goal to end extinction, but it does acknowledge the scale of our biodiversity crisis and the role of science in finding solutions," he said.
The ministers have also set new targets in a bid to improve local recycling.
This includes recovering 80 per cent of materials across all waste types, ensuring government uses more recycled materials and halving the amount of organic waste sent to landfill.
Climate change and Australia's emissions reduction strategy was on the agenda, with the federal government tasked to explain how its plan works at the ministers' yet-to-be-scheduled next meeting.
The agenda also covered feral cats, indigenous heritage sites, the ivory trade and container deposit schemes.
Australian Associated Press
