An economic study of Noosa’s Plastic Free Places program found cafés paid about A$6,847 a year more for non-plastic items, while the community gained A$4.33 for every dollar spent, mostly from less litter.
- Authors / organisation
- SC Lennon & Associates, summarised by the Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office
- Year
- 2021
- Study type
- Model / projection
- Evidence strength
- Evidence: Medium
- Sample / scope
- Participating Noosa cafés, extrapolated to all Noosa cafés; average use 1.67 tonnes of plastic a year
- Key finding
- Cafés paid A$588 a year in program costs and A$6,847 more for non-plastic items, against A$937.50 of benefits; the community return was A$4.33 per dollar invested.
- Headline number
- A$4.33 back to the community for every A$1 invested
- Caveats / how it is misquoted
- Modelled over 40 years. The A$4.33 is a return to the whole community, not to cafés, which were worse off. The study was published as Lennon, Gibbins and Hutcheon (2020), 'The Economic Benefits of Going Plastic Free: The Noosa Experience', in Economic Development Australia's quarterly journal (volume 13, number 2). The consultants' full 2019 report to the Queensland Government is not online.
- Open access
- Yes
- Verified on
- 24 September 2026
Noosa, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, ran a Plastic Free Places program to help cafés drop single-use plastic. SC Lennon & Associates studied its costs and benefits for the Queensland Government. The Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office summarised the results in 2021.
For each café, the study put program costs at A$588 a year and the extra cost of non-plastic items at A$6,847 a year, against A$937.50 a year of benefits from using less plastic. That leaves a typical café about A$6,500 a year worse off.
The community gains are larger: less landfill, and less litter on land (A$9,456 per tonne avoided) and in the sea (A$55,592 per tonne). The study estimated a return to the community of A$4.33 for every dollar invested, modelled over 40 years.
The lesson for businesses: swapping single-use plastic for single-use alternatives costs money. The public benefit is real, which is why programs like this often come with support.
