AFGC welcomes future of soft plastics recycling

The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) has welcomed the Soft Plastics Taskforce’s recognition of the industry-led National Plastics Recycling Scheme (NPRS) as the model for the future of national soft plastic packaging recycling.

AFGC CEO Tanya Barden congratulated the taskforce, which comprises major supermarkets Coles, Woolworths and Aldi, for setting out the roadmap for restoring soft plastics recycling. As a transitional solution, return-to-store collection will be reintroduced and the taskforce supports the NPRS as a model for a sustainable, long-term solution to divert more plastic packaging from landfill.

Developed by the AFGC with funding support from the federal government and leading food and grocery manufacturers, the NPRS involves manufacturers, local councils, waste collectors and processors, and advanced recyclers, each doing their part in the scheme: 

• The NPRS will collect soft plastic packaging, such as bread and cereal bags, frozen vegetable packets, confectionery wrappers and plastic toilet paper wrap.
• As an industry-backed scheme, food and grocery manufacturers will pay a small levy to support the cost of collection and administration.
• Collection will be through an expanded kerbside collection program.
• The bags will be extracted from recycling streams at sorting facilities and sent for processing.
• After being sorted, cleaned and shredded, separate soft plastic types will be sent to advanced recycling facilities where high-tech processes will break the plastic back down into oil — the same type of oil that plastic is made from in the first place.
• That ‘plasticrude’ oil will then be ready for recycling into clean, food-grade plastic packaging.

The NPRS is now undergoing trials in Victoria, NSW and South Australia

Barden said the scheme is a whole-of-supply-chain plan to make soft plastic recycling easy with kerbside collection. It may also lead to investment in new advanced recycling infrastructure in Australia.

“Australia’s food and grocery manufacturers are committed to growing Australia’s recycling and circular economy infrastructure. The model for a soft plastics solution exists,” she said.

More details of the National Plastics Recycling Scheme are available here.

Image credit: iStock.com/Volodymyr Kryshtal