Coles, Woolworths and Aldi are hoping to restart soft-plastics collection and recycling by the end of the year, but warn there are major obstacles to meeting that self-imposed deadline.
Coles, Woolworths and Aldi are part of a soft-plastics taskforce that was convened by the federal government after the“While the taskforce is working to launch in-store collections urgently, it is severely constrained by Australia’s limited access to domestic soft plastic recycling which can manage the ‘mixed polymer’ soft plastics that are deposited by the public in supermarket collection bins,” a spokesperson for the supermarkets said.
But the plan, which is light on details, is also contingent on clearing the massive backlog left by the failure of the REDcycle program, which the taskforce estimates could take at least a year to recycle.“Should new domestic processing capacity be taken up by the estimated 12,000 tonnes of stockpiled material for at least a year, the recommencement of in-store collections will be delayed,” the spokesperson said.
“The Albanese Labor government welcomes the announcement today by Coles and Woolworths of a path forward to resume soft plastics collection,” she said.