Every year Australia uses around a million tonnes of plastic packaging, but only a small part, 16% in 2017/18, is recycled. Not only does this mean a lot of landfill, it also means the loss of a potentially valuable resource.
From the Australian Food & Grocery Council.
The country's food and grocery industries are now driving the development of Australia's first nationwide soft plastic recycling system. The use and reuse of plastic is about to change.
Plastic packaging plays an important role in consumers' daily lives: it keeps food fresh, reduces food waste and keeps products intact. While most plastic packaging is currently not recycled, according to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organization (APCO), two thirds of it is recyclable for 2018/19. The 2018 national waste report prepared by the federal government found that plastic is the worst recovered material of all household waste.
In November 2020, the Australian Food & Grocery Council (AFGC) received a grant of nearly $ 1 million from the federal government to develop the National Plastics Recycling Scheme (NPRS). Work is underway to develop the first nationwide, industry-led recycling program for soft plastics. As an industry led and funded program, it is supported by Australia's largest food and grocery brands.
The NPRS will initially focus on diverting soft plastics from landfills. This means improving the collection of items like bags of bread, cereal and frozen vegetables, candy packaging and toilet paper packaging that end up in landfills. These types of flexible plastic packaging make up about a third of all plastic packaging. However, APCO data show that the recovery rate for “flexible” packaging was only around six percent in 2017/18.
Getting the right collection is an important first step in building a truly circular plastics economy in Australia. There are already some proprietary-sponsored collection schemes in place, such as the REDcycle program, which allows consumers to return soft plastics via collection bins in supermarkets, and the 'Curby' bag trial carried out by Nestlé, iQRenew and the Central Coast Council in NSW.
The NPRS will build and expand the initiatives already on the market to create a coordinated national approach, with optimizing roadside recycling at the heart of the approach. This will help the industry meet the national packaging targets for 2025. The goals set with support from industry and the federal government aim to achieve 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025, with 70% of plastic packaging being recycled or composted and an average of 50% of the recycled content being used in packaging Leakage of problematic and unnecessary single-use plastic packaging.
The NPRS aims to increase the amount of plastic recovered by 190,000 tons per year. That's nearly 38,000 five-ton garbage trucks that were branched off from the top. It's not the complete answer to Australia's plastic challenge, but the NPRS aims to reduce the amount of plastic waste sent to landfills by a third each year. This will require a combination of investment in roadside collection, expanded bring-back systems, incentives to develop new plastics manufacturing facilities, and development of end markets for reclaimed plastics.
The second phase of the NPRS will ensure a steady, clean stream of recyclable products, increasing the availability of high quality food grade plastic packaging for food and grocery manufacturers in Australia. The demand for recycled content is already there: data from APCO shows that post-industrial and post-consumer use of recycled content is already exceeding the current rate of recycling from roadside collection. Access to quality materials is key to increasing the use of recycled food-grade post-consumer packaging.
The AFGC has now formed several advisory bodies to help shape the NPRS and is starting to evaluate various collection and recycling options. With the final draft of the NPRS due in early 2023, the team is also looking around the world and evaluating product management programs to ensure that the program developed for Australia reflects global best practices.
Via the Australian Food & Grocery Council
The Australian Food & Grocery Council is an industry association that has helped member companies and the food, beverage and food industries support Australia. Founded in 1995, AFGC now represents a US $ 127 billion sector employing more than 274,000 people nationwide, with nearly 40% of those jobs in rural and regional Australia.
