Add Category
- In short: Months on from the collapse of soft plastic recycling scheme REDcycle, stockpiles are being consolidated
- What's next? Options for the stockpiled plastic are being explored, including trialling chemical recycling
Australia's major supermarkets have started sending samples of soft plastics overseas to be recycled, as they deal with the legacy of thousands of tonnes of stockpiled plastics from the collapsed REDcycle scheme.
Coles and Woolworths took responsibility for the stockpiles of plastics in February, after REDcycle went into liquidation, owing creditors about $5 million, including fees for storing massive stockpiles in warehouses across several Australian states.
Victoria's environmental watchdog charged REDcycle in December, alleging the company secretly stockpiled 3,000 tonnes of soft plastics across nine sites.
The supermarkets say they subsequently found 11,000 tonnes of plastics over 44 sites, including those disclosed by REDcycle and the regulators, as well as through their own investigations.
In the meantime, most Australians have been left without a way to recycle the 70 billion pieces of soft plastics consumed every year, as the supermarkets work out a way to deal with the stockpiles, and start a new soft plastics collection scheme.
Over the past five months, the supermarkets have consolidated the stockpiles to 18 sites, at a cost of about $3 million.
A spokesperson for Coles and Woolworths said about 4 per cent of the plastics had degraded so much they could not be recycled.
"We're currently exploring a wide range of options to recycle the stockpile, navigating changing timelines from different Australian processors who are developing new soft-plastic recycling facilities," they said.
The problem is, there is not enough capacity in Australia to recycle 11,000 tonnes of soft plastics, let alone restart a collection scheme to replace REDcycle.
Investigating offshore options
The supermarkets said about 120 tonnes of the stockpiles had been processed by domestic companies, including into building materials and concrete additives.
In order to deal with the scale, the supermarkets have started sending samples to Germany, and to a company in the US state of Texas, to trial advanced chemical recycling.
Chemical recycling would allow the plastic to be turned into food packaging or medical equipment, and it is not currently operating at scale in Australia, although some companies are looking into it.
Australia used to send much of its waste overseas, particularly to China, but in 2018, China stopped accepting a wide range of waste.
In 2020, the Australian government introduced a staged ban on exporting waste, so the supermarkets would need government approvals to send the stockpiles offshore.
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water declined to comment on any specific application to export soft-plastic waste.
"Where appropriate processing has occurred, plastic may be used or further processed locally, or sent to markets overseas — as long as the exporter has a waste export licence," a spokesperson said.
'A very parlous state'
The director of the environment group Boomerang Alliance, Jeff Angel, said sending even small quantities of soft plastics overseas, where it would not be subject to Australian regulation, was not a good move.
"We're in a very parlous state with soft plastics collection and recycling," he said.
"The fact it's going overseas to who knows what — incineration, possibly recycling or landfill is just another element of the ongoing disaster."
He said he wanted to see more detail from the supermarkets and the government about its plan for dealing with soft plastics by the end of 2023.
"I think the supermarkets are slowly coming to the realisation they have to meet community demand for recycling, and the use of what's collected as recycled content," he said.
He said governments and businesses needed to make binding commitments to using recycled content to create more of a market for the product, and do more to ensure less plastic was used in packaging.
What about a new scheme?
The soft plastics taskforce, which includes the supermarkets, has previously said it hopes to have a new soft plastics collection scheme in some stores by the end of 2023.
The supermarkets will approach other retailers and brands to contribute to the cost of the program, which the supermarkets say will operate as a new not-for-profit, with independent governance.
A spokesperson for Coles and Woolworths said this was a chance to rethink the future of soft-plastic recycling in Australia, including the possibility of kerbside collection by local government.
"We recognise that in the long-term, more soft plastic could be diverted from landfill if future schemes are more convenient for consumers and can meet soft plastic at the point where it becomes waste — the household," they said.
What's happening in the meantime?
While most Australians have either been collecting their own stockpiles of soft plastics or throwing them into landfill, there are some small-scale solutions.
In Melbourne's south, the City of Kingston set up five collection points for soft plastics around the municipality, which the council then transports to APR plastics in Dandenong, as part of trials with the Australian Food and Grocery Council.
Mayor Hadi Saab, said the scheme had been very popular.
"There's been a huge uptake," he said.
"In the first four days we had 11 skip bins full of soft plastics."
The council said it had collected 110,000 litres of soft plastics since the scheme launched.
But he stressed the local collection was an interim solution.
While the ABC visited the council's customer service building in Cheltenham, about a dozen locals came to drop off soft plastics to be recycled.
Among them was Marie Purificacion, who works part-time as a florist.
"The collection of plastics I get from being a florist is insurmountable," she said.
"So I just started collecting it in the hope someone would start collecting it at some point."
Her partner Mark Samuels said when the council first opened the scheme, the couple delivered about 12 bags full of soft plastics that they had been collecting at home.
"We care about the environment first and foremost," he said.
"We should all be doing a little bit, as much as we can, to try and look after future generations and look after the planet."
The ABC attempted to contact REDcycle founder, Liz Kasell, for a comment.
Watch War On Waste on iview or on Tuesday at 8.30pm on ABC TV.
Loading...