NSW
Halve Waste’s pilot Soft Plastic Program is set to add an extra 12,000 participating households across Albury, Wodonga, Indigo and Alpine council areas.
Operating in partnership with Cleanaway and the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), the expanded program will enable households across the region to recycle their soft plastic packaging through their household recycling bins.
The trial has been running in Albury Wodonga since late 2022, with 2,000 households participating and resulting in around three tonnes of soft plastics diverted from landfill.
Albury Mayor, Kylie King, said the pilot is forging a path for industry and governments to collaborate in establishing a lasting national stewardship scheme in Australia.
“We know that many of our households loved the REDcycle program and call us about an alternative,” she said.
“We are confident this program will be used by even more households due to the convenience of using a special bag in their own bin.
“We welcome this initiative of the AFGC because soft plastics are currently a big part of our waste to landfill and cannot be efficiently collected for recycling in any other way.”
Households in the Albury, Wodonga and Alpine council areas can now register to participate on the Halve Waste website or in person with their local council. The collection bags will be available from council customer service points from 1 August. These can be filled with ‘scrunchable’ soft plastics, secured when full and added to kerbside recycling bins.
All Indigo Shire residents will be mailed a pack containing their collection bags and can also register to participate in the pilot surveys and provide feedback on the program.
AFGC Director of Sustainability, Barry Cosier said it had been working with many companies and all levels of government on a solution for soft plastics since 2020.
“While soft plastics are great for packaging everything from peas to bread, parcels and garden mulch, we need big quantities to be efficiently collected to enable investment and confidence amongst expert recyclers and remanufacturers to make it into product and packaging again,” he said.
There are plans in place to expand the pilot program even further over the next 12 months, reaching 40,000 households.
Work is now underway to better understand which households choose to recycle and the metrics of different collection methods at the same time as brands continue a path towards a product stewardship scheme.
“It is our vision that this program with our residents helps inform the next important phase of this scheme so households across Australia can benefit from recycling more plastic into products made here in Australia,” Mayor King said.
Households can register online via the Halve Waste website Soft Plastic Recycling – Halve Waste or at their council’s customer service centres by phone or in person.
For more information about the soft plastic stewardships scheme go to https://www.afgc.org.au/industry-resources/national-plastics-recycling-scheme.
