Piers is the founder of Precious Plastic Melbourne, with a mission to turn waste into useful products and grow the Precious Plastic community in Australia. Piers believes that Australia cannot continue to ignore the facts on climate change, and that we must do better as a nation.
Read more about Piers and Precious Plastic's story here.
Can you tell us about Precious Plastic Melbourne?
Launched in 2018, Precious Plastic Melbourne works with individuals and organisations, assisting community recyclers to set up their plastic recycling workspaces.
Why is Precious Plastic Melbourne taking climate action?
Rather than sending it to someone else to deal with, we should be doing more to reduce, and deal with our waste right here in Australia.
Can you tell us about your commitments to climate action?
We’re focused on helping local communities recycle traditionally ‘non-recyclable’ plastics into useful products. Aside from creating a circular economy and working towards a stronger local manufacturing industry, our team also focus on education, encouraging communities to find creative ways to salvage their plastic waste.
Is there a project you are working on that you are excited about?
We’re gearing up to launch our new Precious Plastic Melbourne website - here, everyday Aussies will be able to find the machines, tools, and information they need to help them recycle their plastic waste. We offer services such as manufacturing and tool making, as the industry just isn’t available to smaller scale, lower budget projects - it’s so important that these options are there for community recyclers.
What real-world opportunities have you uncovered from taking climate action today?
We’ve created our own closed-loop within our local community. We’ve collected over 300,000 plastic bottle caps. We feel lucky to have become an integral part in assisting our community to reduce their plastic waste.
What climate action would you like to see Australia take?
Impactful legislative change. Australian politicians are not taking the issue of our changing climate and environment issues seriously enough. We can no longer ignore the facts. We must act now, and we MUST do better as a nation.