Coles, Woolworths, Aldi Launch Urgent Taskforce To Fix Australia’s Soft Plastic Recycling Crisis

Supermarkets Coles, Woolworths and Aldi has been given the go-ahead to form a taskforce to deliver a solution for Australia's soft-plastic recycling crisis.

Australia’s consumer watchdog, ACCC provided the all-clear for the major supermarket retailers after REDcycle, the nations biggest soft-plastic recycling program suspended its service last month.

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ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh confirmed that an interim authorisation had been granted to allow the three supermarket giants to have a meeting to “consider, and seek to develop and implement, a short-term solution for the storage, transportation, processing, recycling and/or management of soft plastics.”

"We have moved quickly to approve the interim application as the suspension of the REDcycle program stopped in-store collections of soft plastic, raising community concerns and an urgent need to address the environmental risk of the existing stockpile and future waste," Keogh said.

The Soft Plastics Taskforce, will consider, and seek to develop and implement, a short-term solution for the storage, transportation, processing, recycling and/or management of soft plastics. 

“The application envisages that a longer-term solution to the issue of recycling soft plastics is needed and that the proposed conduct will not detract from or adversely affect the development of longer-term solutions," Mr Keogh said.

For over a decade REDcycle has been the only return-to-store, soft plastics recovery program in Australia, facilitating the collection and processing of soft plastics into a variety of durable recycled plastic products.

Last month they were accused of stashing hundreds of millions of bags and other soft plastics in warehouses, after its program collapsed when three companies who normally accepted the plastic for recycling stopped doing so.

In the short term, REDcycle has advised consumers to put their soft plastics in their home rubbish bin.

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