Woolworths, Coles and Aldi will roll out soft plastics collection bins in 12 Melbourne stores, giving customers an in-store option for recycling their scrunchable food packaging for the first time since the demise of REDcycle.
A spokesperson for the Soft Plastics Taskforce – made up of the three supermarkets and chaired by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water – said the trial, which begins this week, is possible because of new soft plastic recycling facilities that began operating last week.
Coles and Woolworths have continued to sell products in plastic packaging with REDcycle or “return in store” recycling logos but have alerted customers to the incorrect labelling via in store messaging.
Formed in 2011, REDcycle was a national soft plastics collection and recycling program. It operated across 2,000 Coles and Woolworths supermarkets and some Aldi stores, with customers able to drop off used soft plastics for processing.
Before its collapse in November 2022, REDcycle claimed to collect 5m items a day. Coles and Woolworths said in April 2023 that REDcycle had been stockpiling soft plastics without their knowledge, while the scheme itself claimed it had been holding on to the waste while trying to ride out problems.
The taskforce is encouraging shoppers in the 12 Melbourne suburbs to drop off their weekly household soft plastic recycling during their regular shop to “help put the system to the test”.
Soft plastics will be picked up from each store by a third party, the taskforce said, which will then bale and transport the materials to recycling partners in the area.
The taskforce said the plastics would then be sorted, weighed and processed into a variety of products, including an additive for asphalt roads, a replacement for aggregate in concrete and a material for making shopping trolleys and baskets.
The partners will be required to provide data on the material they receive and the material they create with it, and site inspections and audits will be conducted to ensure that expectations are being met, the taskforce said.
Trial results will be reported to the environment department and the ACCC.
“This is an important first step to test the emerging soft plastic recycling industry and ensure the model works on a small scale so we can work towards an industry-wide solution to soft plastics recycling in Australia,” a taskforce spokesperson said.
“We know people were let down by REDcycle, and we’re managing this process carefully to ensure that the program which eventually replaces it is one the community can trust.
“The biggest challenge still remains – there are simply not enough soft plastic recyclers up and running to allow us to expand collections to supermarkets across the country just yet.”
