Single-use plastic bottles are banned from Healesville Sanctuary.
From 1 May, single-use plastic bottled water and soft drinks, along with straws and plastic bags, are no longer being used or sold at the sanctuary, Melbourne Zoo and Werribee Open Range Zoo.
The ban is an effort to move towards zero public waste going to landfill.
Plastic pollution is an urgent environmental problem that is having a significant impact on marine wildlife.
Each year Zoos Victoria’s Marine Response Unit deals with an increasing number of callouts to marine wildlife in distress.
Zoos Victoria is Victoria’s leading zoo-based conservation organisation.
This move is part of a broader effort to influence visitors and other organisations to make positive changes towards a greener, more wildlife-friendly future.
From June this year, the Healesville Sanctuary and the other two zoos will have a new three-bin waste system available to the public – organics, comingled and soft-plastics, such as single-use food wrappers – so no public waste goes to landfill.
Soft plastics will be recycled in Victoria through a circular economy arrangement where Zoos Victoria will buy back products made from the plastics it recycles.
