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Posted: 2022-11-09 17:50:16

The second week of November each year is National Recycling Week and research shows the majority of Australians want to recycle. 

According to the 2022 Australasian Recycling Label Consumer Insights Report, 87 per cent of Australians believe that recycling at home is the right thing to do.

The Australian government agrees and has set ambitious targets, including a target of 70 per cent of plastic packaging being recycled or composted by 2025.

But the country is still well short of that target.

Just 16 per cent of the country's plastic packaging was recycled or composted in 2019-20, down from 18 per cent in 2018-19.

Flatlining recycling rates since 2017 and reports of warehouse stockpiles of plastic reveal serious issues with Australia's recycling system.

Plastic wrappers on a plastic bag.
Only 16 per cent of Australia's plastic packaging was recycled in 2017-18, and the figure remained unchanged two years later.(ABC Great Southern: Lisa Morrison)

A tale of two bottlenecks

A 2018 policy shift by China to stop accepting a wide range of solid waste had major ramifications for Australia's waste management.

The decision meant Australia was left to figure out how to recycle and reuse its own waste rather than offshoring the issue.

In effect, it meant bottlenecks were created in Australia's recycling system, as single organisations became the sole recyclers for thousands of tonnes of waste.

When Melbourne-based recycling organisation REDcycle announced it would temporarily pause its soft plastic collection program on Wednesday, it crippled soft-plastic manufacturing across the country.

Partnered with major retailers such as Coles and Woolworths, the pausing of REDcycle's collection means soft plastics like shopping bags, bubble wrap, cling film and food packaging are now destined for landfill.

A soft plastic recycling bin at Woolworths
Soft plastic recycling has been paused at major supermarkets.(ABC News: Simon Winter)

But even when soft plastics do get collected, experts say there is not enough demand to account for the amount of waste Australia produces. 

Jenni Macklin, a researcher from Monash University's Sustainable Development Institute said there were simply not enough buyers for recycled plastic products.

"It's a lack of customers — whether they're individuals or companies or governments — buying back in large quantities these products made of recycled materials," Ms Macklin said.

"That's where the bottleneck is, this lack of markets to buy it back."

REDcycle said in a statement that offtake partner Replas had experienced significant pandemic-related downturns in market demand.

Meanwhile their other offtake partner Close the Loop — which repurposed nearly half of the 7000 tonnes of soft plastic that Recycle collects each year into building materials — suffered a major fire at their processing facility in June.

Close the Loop expects it will not be able to return to its previous recycling capacity until at least mid-2023.

The isolated events have all but ended soft plastic recycling in Australia for now, highlighting the fragile nature of the recycling system.

A woman with spectacles sitting in a chair
Jenni Macklin says organisations like REDcycle are in a tough position with overwhelming amounts of waste and limited demand for recycled products.(ABC News: Peter Rothwell)

A system in transition

PlanetArk chief executive Rebecca Gilling said Australia was still lagging behind the developed world as it transitioned into its post-China recycling system.

"We are in a sort of temporary glitch at the moment," Ms Gilling said.

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