Kooringal High’s Lachlan Mitchell has launched a petition in his fight against plastic pollution. Photo: Chris Roe.
Riverina teenager Lachlan Mitchell is on a mission to fight plastic pollution.
The 15-year-old from Kooringal High School in Wagga has launched a petition that he hopes will gain attention in NSW Parliament.
“It was last year and I was going fishing when I saw all the plastic on the riverbanks and I decided to do something about it,” he said.
“It was plastic bags particularly and plastic containers, coffee cups and lids and things like bread bag clips, which is another big one I’d find.”
As Lachlan pointed out, NSW generates 800,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year and only 12 per cent of that ends up being recycled.
As a first step, he began reaching out to the Australian companies that he saw represented in the plastic waste he encountered.
“I started writing to businesses like Coles, Baker’s Delight and Coffee Club, all the big businesses that are responsible for the plastic, but I didn’t really get much response, or if I did it was very minimal or they just told me to go away,” he said.
“I thought I’d give it a couple of weeks, but those weeks didn’t really pay off, so in December, I decided to start the petition and sent an email to Dr Joe McGirr’s office.”
With the Member for Wagga Wagga’s encouragement, Lachlan refined his petition to better lay out the alternatives available to replace single-use plastic.
The e-petition was then launched on the NSW Parliament website, calling on the Legislative Assembly to implement a ban on “single-use plastic coffee cups and lids, heavy-weight plastic checkout bags, plastic produce bags, plastic takeaway containers, and plastic bread bag clips” and to replace them with “products made of biodegradable materials, natural fabrics, or compostable bags”.
“We’re looking for 20,000 signatures by 19 November, and this will mean it will be debated in the NSW Parliament,” Lachlan explained.
“If we get 500, then we are guaranteed a response from the NSW Environment Minister.
“So far we’ve had a good response and I’ve had people from all over the state like Byron Bay and Sydney saying how great the petition was.”
In 2022, the NSW Government launched a ban on many single-use plastic items that included plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery, plates and bowls, plastic cotton bud sticks, and of course lightweight plastic shopping bags.
The Australian Marine Conservation Society has identified a list of 24 problematic single-use items, of which NSW has banned eight, with another 12 items proposed for banning in 2025.
“I do believe it is gonna be quite hard to change people’s habits but if you take the plastic bag for example, people were reluctant to get rid of it, but over time, we’ve adapted back to the paper bags and the reusable bags,” Lachlan said.
“I think it starts with getting rid of the fear and providing people with alternatives.”
You can help Lachlan in his quest to make a difference and Reduce Plastic Pollution in NSW by heading to the NSW Legislative Assembly ePetitions page.
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