With a flick of the wrist, you've removed the plastic lid from your water bottle.
How much thought did you give to this small, round piece of plastic that keeps your drink contained in the bottle?
Despite being a hard plastic, these lids are a contaminant that much of Australia's current recycling infrastructure is not set up to handle.
It's inspiring local designers to create new products made from plastic bottle lids, but the industry says the problem is a symbol of how Australia's onshore recycling facilities are falling short.
This week Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek "temporarily" lifted a nationwide plastic export ban due to a lack of onshore recycling facilities within Australia.
Just a few days earlier, the United Nations published a report saying plastic pollution could be slashed by 80 per cent by 2040.
But many in the sector, including Jeremy Williams from WA business Rainbow Plastic, are concerned Australia's onshore recycling facilities are inadequate.
"We haven't got the infrastructure or the capability in Australia for properly recycling," Mr Williams said.
Mr Williams, whose company collects reusable plastic materials from mine and construction sites across Western Australia, said he was concerned by the number of recyclables being sent across the country or overseas to be processed.
"The circular economy needs to be completed within WA to be truly sustainable," he said.
Plastic bottle lids
The issue with plastic bottle lids represents a broader issue with Australia's recycling capabilities, the sector says.
In WA, Tim Youe, from local government recycling organisation Resource Recovery Group, said plastic bottle lids should not be put in yellow-lidded recycling bins due to their size, and they contaminated other materials.
"We like the bottles but not the lids," he said.
Mr Youe said leaving the lids on the bottle wasn't the answer either.
"The bottles are often a different type of plastic to the lid, and our infrastructure can't sort them," he said.
"Leaving lids on also means the bottles are more likely to contain residue of liquids inside."
Mr Youe said in WA, the best thing to do was to collect the lids and take them to a Containers for Change drop-off point.
Containers for Change chief executive Tim Cusack said once the lids were collected, they were delivered to the Perth-based electronic waste recyclers Total Green Recycling and CLAW Environmental Recycling.
"Plastic lids are recycled into pellets, which are used to create construction products, whilst metal lids are sold to local metal recyclers," he said.
Mr Youe said there was also a number of not-for-profits who recycled plastic bottle lids, but unless the lids were collected separately and handed into places that specifically recycle them, they should be put in the red-lidded rubbish bin.
What about outside of WA?
Australian Council of Recycling CEO Suzanne Toumbourou said the directives for plastic bottle lids varied across states.
"Whether you leave the lid on the bottle or not [and] put it in the recycling or the red-lidded bin, that depends on where you are," she said.
"The priority for now is to check [the rules]."
Ms Toumbourou advised people to use the Recycle Mate app or ask their local council if unsure where to dispose of the lids.
She said Australia's recycling sector was gearing up to recycle more plastic types.
"We're aiming to address multiple hard-to-recycle items such as bottle caps at scale over the coming years."
New life for lids
With the lack of recycling facilities for plastic bottle tops in WA, locals are getting creative with their solutions.
Toby Whittington is the chief executive and co-founder of Green World Revolution, a Perth social enterprise that is turning plastic lids into new designer products through its organisation Made in the City of.
"We collect the lids from businesses mostly," he said.
"And we're in the process of designing an app that people will be able to use to teach them how to sort the lids before they bring them to us."
Mr Whittington said currently, the lids were sorted by hand into size and polymers. Then they were washed in a domestic washing machine, dried and crushed.
"At that point, we take a measurement to find out how many we've processed, and we do our own colour mixes," he said.
"Then we use injection moulding and compression to make different types of designer products.
"So far in our range, we've got iPad stands, soap dishes, earrings, organiser trays, plant stands and kits for you to grow your own microgreens with."
What is the bigger solution?
Mr Cusack said he was hopeful the federal government's $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund would help Australia increase its onshore recycling capabilities.
He said of the material Containers for Change collected, 84 per cent (determined by weight) was recycled within the country.
"The vast majority of the 16 per cent that is exported is aluminium cans, and that's because we just don't have the smelting capability to handle this recycled material," Mr Cusack said.
The aluminium cans — of which Containers for Change have collected 932 million since 2020 — are sent overseas to South Korea and Thailand to be processed.
"It's crazy to be shipping all this material offshore," Mr Cusack said.
