Two years on from REDcycle\u2019s collapse, 94% of Australia\u2019s soft plastics are still headed for landfill. Collection has restarted at supermarkets, and 42 warehouses of plastics have been cleared, but experts say the packaging industry must take responsibility for the mess.<\/p>\n
By July, supermarkets had mostly cleared the stockpiles, which by November 2022 reached 11,000 tonnes of soft plastics<\/a> at 44 sites across the country, hoards accumulated as collections outstripped available recycling capacity and export restrictions increased the amount of plastic waste in Australia.<\/p>\n The remainder \u2013 3,500 tonnes at two sites, in Victoria and in South Australia \u2013 is due to be processed in the first half of 2026, according to the supermarket members of the Soft Plastics Taskforce.<\/p>\n But as more than 100 new collection points have been rolled out since June <\/strong>in selected Woolworths, Coles and Aldi stores across New South Wales and Victoria, taskforce members have been careful not to collect more than can be processed.<\/p>\n There is simply not enough soft plastic recycling capacity in Australia to support full, nationwide collections<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Soft Plastics Taskforce spokesperson<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest challenge still remains that there is simply not enough soft plastic recycling capacity in Australia to support full, nationwide collections,\u201d a spokesperson for the taskforce told the Guardian.<\/p>\n Soft plastic is defined by its ability to be scrunched into a ball, unlike \u201crigid\u201d plastics, which are moulded to hold their shape. Even at the peak of its operations in 2022, REDcycle was collecting about 7,500 tonnes \u2013 less than 2% of the 538,000 tonnes<\/a> of plastic bags, food wrappers, bubble wrap and other \u201cflexible\u201d plastic waste produced in Australia each year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have a real problem in that we consume too much [soft plastics], we discard too much and we don\u2019t buy back anywhere near enough,\u201d says Gayle Sloan, the chief executive of the Waste<\/a> Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia.<\/p>\n While recyclers are increasing their capacity to process the material, Sloan says other problems remain: the vast quantities produced, design packaging that is too complex to recover and the lack of demand from packaging companies and other consumers for Australian-made recycled plastic.<\/p>\n She says the onus should be on plastic manufacturers to invest in facilities to take back their own material. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to stop putting it on consumers to solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite national packaging targets<\/a> set by governments in 2018 for 70% of plastic packaging to be recycled by 2025, only about 6% of used and discarded soft plastics were being <\/strong>baled, sorted, shredded, washed, melted \u2013 or chemically processed \u2013 and turned into new products, according to data<\/a> published in December by Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia. The rest has headed to landfill.<\/p>\n Consumer plastics collected by households, while the most visible, are only one part of the story.<\/p>\n Soft plastics are embedded in so many aspects of modern life, says David Hodge, the managing director of recycling company Plastic Forests. The material is widely used, for example, in sectors such as agriculture for storing grain and preventing weeds, and in transport for wrapping pallets.<\/p>\n Consumer materials, particularly those used for foods \u2013 frozen produce bags, cereal liners or bread bags \u2013 are \u201ctremendously hard to recycle, some of them impossible\u201d, he says. They are often \u201csuper technical\u201d, comprising different types of plastic, and contaminated by inks used for advertising, or food residues.<\/p>\n