July 26th, 2024Soft plastics recycling pilot expands in local shire
Macedon Ranges residents are now being encouraged to join an expanded shire-wide kerbside soft plastics recycling pilot, following an encouraging earlier trial in Romsey.
As of this week households can now register in-person at a council customer service centre to get a free pack of 20 bags. Households can conveniently recycle soft plastics by filling these special orange collection bags and, when full, placing them into the yellow-lidded recycling bin for collection.
The pilot program is an expansion of an initial 12-month trial in Romsey and is part of the development of a proposed national pilot program led by the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) in conjunction with over 40 household brands.
Mayor Annette Death said the council’s ongoing involvement in supporting recycling alternatives for soft plastics reflected resident feedback and interest in the former RedCycle program.
“We are confident this pilot program will be used by even more households, given the convenience of using a special bag in their own bin,” she said.
“We welcome this initiative by the AFGC and are excited to continue this pilot partnership in our shire. Soft plastics are currently a big part of our waste to landfill and cannot be efficiently collected for recycling in any other way.
“We hope that this expanded pilot benefits our residents and helps inform the next important phase of this scheme. It is important that many more households are able to recycle soft plastic into products made here in Australia.”
AFGC Director of Sustainability, Barry Cosier, said the expanded pilot was the next step for industry and governments to collaborate in designing a product stewardship scheme in Australia.
“We have been working with many companies and all levels of government on a solution for soft plastics,” Mr Cosier said.
“While soft plastics are useful for packaging everything from peas to bread, to parcels and garden mulch, we need large quantities to be efficiently collected to instil confidence to invest in recycling and to remanufacture it into recycled products and packaging again.”
The Romsey-based trial selected just over 2,200 residents to participate, with a massive 1737 kilograms of soft plastic that would have otherwise gone to landfill recycled.
Work is also underway to better understand which households choose to recycle, and the benefits of different collection methods, while brands continue to work towards the development of a proposed product stewardship scheme.
