Australians throw away a whopping 3.5 million tonnes of plastic each year but less than a 10th is recycled. When you break that down to soft plastics (plastic bags, cling film) we throw out 70 billion pieces a year - around 3000 pieces per person.
Less than a quarter of Australians are aware that soft plastics are recyclable. The diligent minority who regularly took their old plastic bags to supermarket drop-off boxes have recently been disappointed. The REDcycle debacle has shown that relying on commercial enterprise or government intervention alone is not the solution.
