The Epic Fail Of Our Soft Plastics Recycling System

Shocking reports have disclosed that hundreds of millions of plastic bags and other soft plastic items deposited at REDcycle bins in Coles and Woolworth supermarkets are just stockpiling them in warehouses for months instead of being recycled.  

With REDcycle collapsing in November last year, the Supreme Court last week declared the scheme insolvent. 

Listen to the full episode below: 

The failure of the recycling system has pushed Australia even further from its national packaging target. So, how far are we from that 2025 goal? 

On today’s Briefing, we speak to Jeff Angel, Director of the Total Environment Centre and Boomerang Alliance, about the collapse of REDcycle.  

Giving the impression that soft plastic recycling was truly on the way and active, but we found that REDcycle was a tiny scheme hardly collecting one per cent of total soft plastics,”

Angel said.

Angel said several failures were happening on a wide range of levels that contributed to the recycling crisis in Australia.  

We found that stockpiling was happening because they couldn’t sell the material, and it was secret.” 

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