THE recycling of soft plastics has become more accessible with the introduction of Curby tags at supermarkets across participating local government areas, including in the Hunter.
The Curby 'Bag in a Bin' tags will be available at 22 Woolworths stores in Newcastle, Port Stephens and the Central Coast, allowing eligible household soft plastics to be recycled from home through councils' yellow-lidded kerbside recycling services.
People can either return soft plastics in-store at a selection of Woolworths, Coles and Aldi stores, or collect Curby tags and recycle from home. The Curby bags and tags will also remain available through the Curby app.
Under the Curby program, eligible soft plastics are placed into a suitable bag, secured and registered with a Curby tag, and then placed into the household yellow-lidded recycling bin.
Tagged bags can then be identified and separated through the Material Recovery Facility rather than contaminating conventional recycling.
A 'return-to-store' soft plastics recycling program was reintroduced at supermarkets earlier this year, with more than 700 Woolworths stores, five Coles stores and 12 Aldi stores on board to date.
The soft plastics gathered at stores, or via kerbside recycling bins in the Newcastle, Port Stephens and Central Coast council areas, are sent to a dedicated post-consumer soft plastics recycling facility on the Mid North Coast, run by iQRenew, which had its start on the Central Coast.
That facility, known as a Soft Plastics Engineered Commodity (SPEC) facility, was part-funded by a $9.1 million grant from the Australian and New South Wales governments.
Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, Murray Watt, is expected to discuss the issue of plastics recycling at a summit with leaders of Australia's states and territories in mid-September, along with the issue of mandatory versus voluntary programs.
Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia (SPSA) has the green light from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to collect and recycle used soft plastic packaging, under a voluntary scheme, over the next eight years.
It has been authorised to collect levies from brand owners, manufacturers, and retailers based on how much soft plastic they put on the market, and must report annually on their progress.
Meanwhile, Minister Watt continues to be lobbied to introduce implement mandatory plastic waste and recycling laws to replace voluntary targets and introduce Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) shifting responsibility for managing post-consumer plastic wastes back to the original manufacturers and brand owners.
