Major food and grocery brands in Australia are supporting a new scheme to keep soft plastic packaging out of landfills and build a new recycling industry that can produce food-grade, recycled soft plastic packaging in the country.
Led by the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), the National Plastics Recycling Scheme (NPRS) is a project designed to close the loop for soft plastic packaging and produce food-grade packaging from recycled materials local FMCG companies need but have to source overseas.
The initiative comes just days after the suspension of RedCycle’s soft-plastic recycling scheme that has left thousands of tonnes of unrecycled plastics in warehouses, and supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles forced to suspend collection from customers.
Seventeen major food and grocery manufacturing companies listed below have signed on as Foundation Supporters of the NPRS project, committing funds to the trials and pilots:
- PepsiCo
- Haribo
- Mars
- Simplot
- Unilever
- Mondelez
- Goodman Fielder
- Mayers Fine Food
- Unicharm
- SC Johnson
- Arnott’s
- Fonterra
- George Weston Foods
- Nestle
- Kimberly-Clark
- Kellogg’s
- Lactalis
Tanya Barden, CEO, AFGC, mentioned that the paused RedCycle store drop-off program – unconnected to the NPRS project – addressed a part of the recycling market. However, she said there is a need for a larger-scale program to recycle soft plastics for the long term.
“Soft plastic packaging plays a vital role in ensuring the freshness and protection of food, personal care and home care products, and manufacturers use soft plastics because they are strong and light with a low carbon footprint,” said Barden.
Nearly 487,000 tonnes of soft-plastic packaging was used in the country from 2019 to 2020, with just 4 per cent of that material recycled. The organisation said diverting soft plastics from landfill on a larger scale can provide a clean stream of material for the country’s emerging advanced recycling industry.
Darren Thorpe, managing director for APR Group, added there is a huge demand for recycled food-grade plastics not just in the country but all over the world and that collecting soft plastics in large volumes is crucial.
“We have the technology to do that, and these trials are shaping a scalable model that will enable the creation of a sustainable and efficient advanced recycling industry for soft plastics here in Australia,” said Thorpe.
The first in a series of trials of kerbside collection of soft plastic packaging for NPRS has already begun in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges Shire Council.
