Coles and Woolworths have been given another ten months to deal with thousands of tonnes of soft plastic waste left stranded by the collapse of REDcycle.
More than 5,000 tonnes of stockpiled soft plastics have been warehoused after the industry-led recycling program REDcycle collapsed in late 2022.
Since its collapse, Australians have had no other “return-to-store” soft plastics program in Australia, cutting off the only national avenue for consumers to recycle waste like plastic bags, food wrapping and soft parcel packaging.
The supermarket giants agreed to assume responsibility for the stranded waste in February last year, and then were issued urgent clean up notices after it was determined the stockpiles posed significant fire dangers.
Now the Environment Protection Agency in NSW has granted Coles and Woolworths another ten months to deal with the 5,000 tonnes of waste, in the hopes that more time will allow it to be spared from landfill.
“We know the public, who diligently collected and dropped off their soft plastics, has been disappointed in Redcycle and the best outcome for this material is to see it recycled and reprocessed,” EPA operations director Adam Gilligan said.
“Revising the time period gives the supermarkets an opportunity to secure a solution for the material so that the vast majority of the material doesn’t end up in landfill.”
Woolworths and Coles requested the deadline extension citing that recycling facilities needed “extra time to process the large amount of material”.
The EPA granted that request on the condition the supermarkets provide staged plans and detail milestones for the progressive removal of the waste.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the government was investing in improving recycling capacity, which has caused delays and limited attempts to revive a soft plastics drop-off scheme.
“With states and territories and business we’re investing $1 billion to recycle an extra 1.3 million tonnes per year, including $60 million of federal government funding for soft plastic recycling. We’ve funded 60 new plastic recycling facilities with 16 already up and running,” Ms Plibersek said.
Shadow Environment Minister Jonno Duniam said the extension for supermarkets was further evidence of a “complete disaster” in the recycling space.
“Two years after Tanya Plibersek said that she wouldn’t hesitate to step in to solve the REDcycle crisis, we’re having mess after mess uncovered under her watch without any action that will resolve this crisis,” Senator Duniam said.
“The minister has failed to lift a finger while our environment continues to suffer.”
Pressure to guarantee new recycling rules
Australia was meant to have 100 per cent of packaging able to be reused, recycled or composted, with at least 70 per cent actually being recycled or composted by 2025.
But just 20 per cent of packaging is being recovered according to the most recent figures — with broad acknowledgement that the 2025 targets will be missed.
A Labor-led inquiry into plastic waste referred by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek yesterday reported to parliament that without “urgent action” plastic waste would continue to increase.
That inquiry recommended a renewed National Plastics Plan, with stronger obligations for waste producers made a priority as part of that plan.
It also recommended expanding the container deposit scheme to include rubbish such as milk, juice, wine and spirits bottles.
Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson said retailers and packaging companies would not change without mandating recycled packaging.
“The federal government’s failure to hold big companies to account for creating plastic waste, and its failure to mandate plastic recycling targets, is to blame for recyclable soft plastics sent to landfill as a result of REDcycle’s collapse,” Senator Whish-Wilson said.
“The federal government needs to mandate our plastic targets – they will continue to be missed if they’re not legally binding – and enforce all plastic producers to use a much higher percentage of recycled plastics in their products.”
Environment ministers agreed at a meeting last year to mandate minimum recycled content in packaging, recognising voluntary packaging targets had failed to achieve substantial progress.
But the Greens have expressed skepticism, saying successive governments have continued to drag the chain on regulation.
Ms Plibersek said ministers were working to create the new recycling rules.
“Having individuals keen to do their bit is fantastic – but it’s not enough. More than seventy per cent of a product’s environmental impact is locked in at the design stage, before a customer ever looks at it,” Ms Plibersek said.
“That’s why the country’s environment ministers have agreed to design strict new rules for packaging to ensure that all packaging in Australia is designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed safely in line with circular economy principles.”