By Petula Edwards, General Committee Member
For those of you who have been diligently saving and recycling the soft plastics I am sure, like me, it has come as a great disappointment that the REDcycle system has failed and had to be suspended for the time being. You can go to their website to understand why but basically it is because we have been doing such a good job at recycling the soft plastics that the system has been overwhelmed.
The ACCC are involved and say that “Major supermarket retailers will form part of a Soft Plastic Taskforce to explore solutions to address the immediate effects of REDcycle suspending its return-to-store soft plastics recovery program. They will investigate solutions for the storage, transport, processing, recycling and management of soft plastics to minimize the volume that may end up in landfill.” This Taskforce will be Chaired by The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
As of 28 November, public consultation process begins and 19 December is the last day for submissions from interested parties. The final determination is expected in April 2023.
For now, I suggest continuing to collect your soft plastics as before but place in the GENERAL WASTE (RED) BIN then hopefully when collections resume after April we are still in the habit of recycling it. PLEASE DO NOT PUT SOFT PLASTICS IN THE RECYCLING (YELLOW) BIN.
I intend to push for the soft plastics from businesses to be included in this Taskforce if possible or certainly for their needs to be considered.