Coastal Warriors supports idea to print customers' registration numbers on fast food bags

A UK farmer put his suggestion to McDonalds in a recent Twitter, which went viral.

Tom Martin said technology advancements would enable fast food outlets to print car regos on any takeaway packaging.

The move could help stem the amount of littering being thrown out, particularly along roads in and around fast food outlets.

Clean Up Australia believes this is a wonderful initiative.

During 2019 Clean Up volunteers reported they removed 62,807 rubbish items from 155 roadway sites across Australia.

27% of this is plastics and 14% is paper - with food packaging dominating both rubbish types.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg - because cleaning roadsides is hazardous work, with restrictions to volunteer access to speed limits under 50km/h, said a Clean Up Australia spokesperson.

"Our volunteers are telling us they are frustrated by the amount of roadside rubbish they can't access - so how good would it be to be able to trace littering culprits to ensure they receive the punishment they deserve," the spokesperson said.

"As we approach our 2020 national Clean Up Australia Day, we encourage Aussie fast food outlets to Step Up and join the push to rid our countryside of this litter."

While supportive of the concept, Coastal Warriors' Amy Robinson says more can also be done to cut down the amount of single-use packaging currently being produced and used.

"Coastal Warriors' main standpoint would be to reduce the amount of packaging that we produce," she said.

"But these kinds of ideas can help reduce litter too.

"By producing less packaging that eventually ends up as litter, moving away from single-use products and using alternatives including bio-degradable products would all help the situation.

"And these products are already available.

"We would support ideas like this but the big players like McDonalds or Coca-Cola have to implement these types of changes," she said.

"There would need to be plenty of lobbying while government would also need to put pressure on as well."

Ms Robinson said she would support any move as part of an overall solution.

Reusing current litter in a more meaningful way was also another alternative.

Coastal Warriors introduced a successful program called eCANomy at the 2019 FOTSUN event.

This program saw bags distributed by Coastal Warriors volunteers to FOTSUN visitors who filled them with cans.

The cans were then recycled rather than ending up in landfill.

She said a broader problem was the amount of packaging being produced as part of our existing food system.

"There is a large amount of packing being produced and only a small amount of it being recycled," she said.

Coastal Warriors Mid North Coast was founded in 2017.

It is a volunteer-based organisation with an aim is to prevent plastics and other harmful objects entering our oceans and waterways that impact marine life and damage our ecosystems.

It conducts monthly clean-ups in and around the Port Macquarie-Hastings waterways including a recent successful cigarette butt blitz on the Town Green.

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