Twelve months after REDcycle’s dramatic collapse, Australians are no closer to a national soft plastics recycling program, leading to calls for the federal government to crack down on the nation’s major supermarkets.
Key points:
- REDcycle stopped collecting soft plastics last November and was declared insolvent in February
- 44 stockpiles of soft plastics have been reduced to 12 nationwide since then
- A soft plastics expert says Australia should be given a “failing grade” for its response to the collapse
The supermarket-based REDcycle scheme stopped operating last November after it was revealed the company was unable to process the mountains of soft plastics it had stored around the country.
The Environment Protection Authority has since handed out and then withdrawn charges against the company that went insolvent in February, but insists more serious penalties could be handed down under environmental laws.
In the meantime, most Australians have been left without a way to recycle 70 billion pieces of soft plastic consumed every year.
Trevor Thornton, senior lecturer in hazardous materials management at Deakin University, is unimpressed.
“We’re probably looking at a failing grade for where we’re at,” Dr Thornton said.
“We’ve got government policies that have been around, we’ve got some infrastructure being constructed, but overall we still are not recycling terribly much of the soft plastics.”
The state of play
A Soft Plastics Taskforce comprising Coles, Woolworths, and Aldi was set up in the wake of REDcycle’s collapse.
It has taken responsibility for the company’s roughly 11,000 tonnes of soft plastic across 44 locations Australia-wide.
These sites have now been consolidated to 12 in total, almost half of which are in Victoria.
Conditional updates to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) reveal a small amount of plastics have been sent to landfill, however the total amount of plastics that remains, the cost to maintain it, and Australia’s soft plastics recycling capacity have all been redacted.
Coles and Woolworths are sending samples of soft plastics overseas as one method of dealing with thousands of tonnes of stockpiled plastics.
However a mooted, small-scale resumption of supermarket collection, slated for late 2023, has been pushed back until next year due to “numerous delays”.
The biggest hold-up is Australia’s lack of a soft plastics recycling infrastructure, something that was exacerbated by a ban on its export in 2023.
“We are starting to see some encouraging green shoots with new recycling infrastructure currently in development,” a spokesperson for the Soft Plastics Taskforce said.
“We’ll be running a small scale trial early next year.”
The taskforce’s October update did reveal that only Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia have, or are working on, soft plastics recycling facilities.
It reports that waste from Tasmania will be transferred to Victoria, NSW will take responsibility for Queensland’s waste, and that SA will receive materials from the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Slow and steady wins the race
Australian Council of Recycling chief executive Suzanne Toumbourou is cautiously optimistic about the sector’s future.
Even before the issues with REDcycle, Australia’s recycling sector was in crisis with the production of new plastics far outstripping the demand for recycled materials.
Ms Toumbourou said the sector could not afford to resume collections before the recycling sector was ready.
“Hypothetically we could switch on [soft plastics] collection tomorrow, but that’s not what anybody wants if we’re trying to actually deliver real recycling outcomes,” she said.
“I’d be very careful about about expanding collection without ensuring that there is infrastructure to process [the plastics] and markets for it to go to.
“I’m confident that those who are leading those collection points are really mindful of that too.”
Time for the stick, not just the carrot
Some small-scale soft plastics recycling programs are in place in Victoria and New South Wales, however a large-scale system seems to be some way off.
Until then, people like Dr Thornton are urging households to continue holding onto soft plastics and not contaminating other recycling sources like traditionally yellow lid bin collections.
Dr Thornton said it was time for government to incentivise businesses to move away from soft plastics by offering things such as tax breaks to those that do.
“I think governments have dropped the ball in terms of coming up with policies and mandating, and perhaps being innovative in how we do things,” he said.
“If a supermarket wants to change something from a supplier it can do it in days, hours, yet they keep saying that they’re working on reducing soft plastics. So why is it taking so long?
“This is where government has got to say: ‘Well, we’ve given you a chance to achieve [reductions] and you’re not doing it. So now we’re going to come in with the stick and not just the carrot.'”