Residents Soft Plastic Recycling
At Halve Waste, we want to spotlight and support individuals, groups and businesses that are “doing good” and helping us to reach our target of reducing our waste.
We have some exciting news about a Local Soft Plastics Recycling Pilot – Phase2
AlburyCity, Alpine Shire, Indigo Shire and City of Wodonga are excited to participate in an expansion of the kerbside soft plastics recycling program that has been operating in 2000 households in Albury and Wodonga since late 2022 and has seen 3 tonnes of soft plastics diverted from landfill and sent to be recycled in Melbourne.
Residents participating in the initial trial can continue to utilise the program.
In order to grow this recycling process in a sustainable way the scheme now invites more residents who live within these council areas to participate.
Life Cycle of Soft Plastics
Soft Plastics Recycling Frequently Asked Questions
A. Indigo Shire residents will ALL be sent a pack containing the special orange soft plastic collection bags and instructions on how to participate. If your household does not wish to participate you can give the pack to a neighbour or friend who also lives in Indigo Shire or hand it back to council at your nearest customer service point. You can register using the form below if you wish to participate in the surveys through the pilot phase of the program.
Albury, Alpine and Wodonga council residents You will need to register in the below form to participate. Once you have registered you will be sent an email with details of where to collect your council’s soft plastic collection bags (pack of 20 provided).
The bags will be available for collection from August 1 2024, collect your pack and start adding soft, scrunchable, clean, empty and dry soft plastic packaging.
When the bag is full like a basketball tie a double knot and add the bag to your yellow lidded recycling bin for collection.
Please note that Albury and Wodonga resident collection bag numbers are capped so once the allocated household numbers are reached for these councils the registration process will be closed to these council residents for the trial period.
A. With thanks to the National Food and Grocery Council, Halve Waste, AlburyCity, Indigo, Alpine and Wodonga councils, Cleanaway and the soft plastics recycling industry this pilot is provided at no cost to participating households. The pilot period will help all the partners understand how to collect, process and costs involved in recycling soft plastics through our yellow lidded bins.
A. We know soft plastics appear with all sorts of products and so much of it ends up in landfill. This pilot is important because until now we have been unable to recycle soft plastic through your kerbside recycling bin. Loose soft plastics jam up equipment in the collection truck and recycling centre, and too easily become litter or end up in landfill.
As a true circular economy model, we need to make it easier for people to recycle soft plastics at home and support the development of a new, advanced recycling industry here in Australia to take that packaging and turn it back into new material, ready for reuse.
A. We can sort the bags at the recycling centre, send them to a plastics reprocessor for cleaning and treatment to then go to make new plastic products. This way we all help reduce virgin plastics, waste to landfill, emissions and litter.
A. The orange bags are ‘singlet style’ to allow a secure tie once the bag is filled. They are designed to be hung on a handle or in a pantry or line a small bin in order to easily add your soft plastic packaging. Only add full bags to your recycling bin (no need to add to each fortnightly collection unless the bags are full).
A. Unfortunately, only residents of Albury, Alpine, Indigo Wodonga council areas can register for this trial phase 2. We are working with the recycling scheme coordinators to support expansion of soft plastic recycling, however in order to test different aspects of the recycling process and scheme administration it is important to keep the trial participants at a level we can assure residents the plastics are recycled.
A. This program is not connected to the REDcycle store drop-off scheme. The plastics collected will be processed into flake, pellets or building substitutes, as well as into oil for renewed plastics by entities such as Viva in Geelong. All councils and companies involved in the pilot are collaborating with agreements in place.
A. Soft plastic packaging that displays the Australian Recycling Label (ARL) “Return To Store” or “In-store Drop-off” logo. You can learn more here. Tip: Use the “scrunch” test as a guide – soft plastics tend to stay scrunched in a ball, hard plastics go back to their shape or can’t be scrunched.
A. More will be made available through your council customer service centres.
A. That is correct, loose soft plastics and bagged recyclable items get caught around recycling machinery, which is why we always ask our residents to not bag recyclable items normally.
The orange pilot bags have been provided specifically to be easy to identify and if filled and sealed correctly, avoid getting caught in machinery and will be easy to separate from other recyclable items.
Its very important to keep all other items in your yellow lidded recycling bin loose (not bagged) as you usually do.
A. You can contact your local Council for options to upsize or add an additional yellow lidded recycling bin.
A. Yes – you can keep filling any orange bags and adding to your regular yellow lidded recycling bins until you use them all up.
No. For Phase 2 of the Soft Plastic Recycling Pilot, our primary focus is on assessing household recycling behaviour. As such participation is currently limited to households only.
Should additional participation be required, we may consider including businesses in the future.
Businesses can recycle their clean and clear soft plastic waste such as heavy-duty film wrap, shrink-wrap and bubble wrap by bringing it to the collection point at the Albury Waste Management Centre (charges apply). Alternatively, commercial waste providers have options for recycling soft plastic waste.
Please forward any further questions to [email protected]
Register for Soft Plastic Recycling today!
Please fill in this short form to get access to a pack of special soft plastic collection bags. The pack will be available for collection at your council customer service location from August 1, 2024.
