REDcycle collection program on pause

REDcycle has announced that its nationwide soft plastics collection program will be on a temporary pause from 9 November 2022 but said it hopes to restart it as soon as possible.

The pause on the soft plastics collection through bins at Coles and Woolworths comes after reports that the waste has been stockpiled in warehouses for months without it being recycled.

From at least June this year, it was reported that the recycling program was experiencing issues, after a fire at the processing facility of REDcycle’s largest recycling partner, Close the Loop, which converts soft plastics into asphalt additives for road base.

The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) said it was recently notified about the challenges facing REDcycle, and since then has been working with interested parties on potential options to address the collection of soft plastics.

“For the longer term, there is a need for a larger-scale program to recycle soft plastics. To this end, the AFGC and leading Australian food and grocery manufacturers have been developing a scheme for nationwide soft plastics recycling underpinned by kerbside collection of the material.

“This week, the first in a series of kerbside soft plastic collection trials has started, with some residents in certain local government areas across the country already participating. These trials will enable the entire supply chain to invest with confidence in a soft plastics recycling scheme for the future. We see kerbside collection as vital and the only way Australia can be a leader in advanced recycling.

“There is enormous demand for recycled food-grade soft plastics from manufacturers and Australia is well-placed to be a global leader off the back of nationwide kerbside collection of soft plastics,” the AFGC said in its statement.

According to Jeff Angel, Director of the Boomerang Alliance, the collapse of the soft plastics recycling program has highlighted bigger issues that need to be fixed. “All producers need to be part of a mandatory product stewardship scheme that requires investment in comprehensive collection systems and use of the material in new products. This can be achieved under federal law; or a state like NSW which has some good legislation. Reliance on the voluntary, small-scale approach was always going to fail. Producers also need to find alternatives to plastic, so the pollution problem is lessened,” Angel said.

Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) plastics spokesperson Shane Cucow said: “Chip packets, plastic wrappings and other soft plastics are the most common types of plastics found in ocean clean-up surveys.

“People have been trying to do the right thing by returning their soft plastics for recycling, but even before REDcycle’s suspension we were only managing to recycle 4% of soft plastics in Australia.”

Cucow also said he thought the only real solution is for governments to mandate plastic reduction targets for big companies.

In a social media post REDcycle said: “We want to thank the passionate Australian REDcycle community who over the last 10 years has helped us to keep 5.4 billion pieces of soft plastic entering landfill and our natural environments. REDcycle and its partners are committed to having the program back up and running as soon as possible.”

Image credit: iStock.com/roberto bucci