Thousands of tonnes of plastic bags from Coles, Woolworths scheme found in warehouses

Almost 8000 tonnes of plastic bags have been found in warehouses across three states as investigations continue into the collapse of Australia’s largest soft plastics recycling program.

Investigators in Victoria, South Australia and NSW uncovered the waste as part of a probe into the REDcycle program that was suspended last month after The Age revealed the business had been secretly stockpiling plastics for years.

Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority uncovered 3000 tonnes of waste at seven sites, including warehouses in Melbourne’s north and west and at West Wodonga in the state’s north.

Plastic bags were being stored at sites in the Melbourne suburbs of Tottenham, Williamstown North, Truganina, West Footscray, Campbellfield and Tullamarine.

The NSW Environmental Protection Authority uncovered nine sites where soft plastics were being stored.

“The NSW EPA has been investigating potential soft plastics stockpile sites across NSW and identified nine sites, with five of these locations storing the bulk of approximately 3300 tonnes of soft plastics waste,” the authority’s chief executive, Tony Chappel, said.

Stockpiles of soft plastic inside a Melbourne warehouse.Credit: EPA

He said it was disappointing to see the mismanagement of plastics that consumers believed were being recycled appropriately.

It issued 191 notices to the company to provide information to help identify any additional stockpiles and said it was working with councils and firefighters to manage risks.

South Australia’s environmental authority said on Friday it had discovered about 1500 tonnes of soft plastics from REDcycle in two Adelaide warehouses.

The REDcycle program collapsed in November after revelations by The Age that hundreds of millions of bags and other soft plastic items dropped off by customers at Coles and Woolworths were being secretly stockpiled in warehouses and not recycled.

REDcycle told EPA Victoria about a number of sites after it was issued with an information-gathering notice. Others were revealed by logistics companies. The Victorian EPA said on Friday it believed more stockpiles could exist across Australia.

Victoria EPA chief executive Lee Miezis said it was an offence to mislead the body, and REDcycle could face repercussions if it misled investigators or failed to provide information relevant to investigations.

REDcycle said in a statement on Friday it was assisting with the investigation and would continue to fully support the work of the EPA.

“We continue to keep our partners and our dedicated and loyal REDcycle community updated with our progress,” the company said. “Our top priority is working to find solutions to convert this material into a desirable and needed resource for the greater good.”

EPA inspectors at one of the Melbourne warehouses.Credit: EPA

Miezis said the agency was working to ensure fire-risk mitigation was in place at all sites.

“Our officers are out inspecting sites today and we’ll continue to work hard, using our stronger regulatory powers, until we’re certain we’ve found every site in Victoria,” he said.

“We will not allow unacceptable risks to Victoria’s community or environment from pollution or waste.

“Although the operators of REDcycle did tell us about some of the sites, intelligence from logistics companies and others is assisting EPA’s investigations. If you have any of these soft plastic wastes at your warehouse, we need to know.”

Miezis said about half a billion plastic bags, which could now end up in landfill, had been uncovered.

“We’d love to see these recycled as was intended, but if we do need to remove them from the site to manage the risk and they need to go to landfill, then we’ll obviously work with the managers of the site, work with landfill operators to make sure they’re properly and safely disposed of,” he said.

REDcycle, a Melbourne-based company, claimed it collected up to 5 million plastic items a day from public drop-off points at nearly 2000 supermarkets across the country, and delivered them to other companies, where they were used as ingredients in concrete, asphalt, street furniture, bollards and shopping trolleys.

However, instead of taking plastic to companies to make other items as promised, REDcycle was transporting the plastic to warehouses for long-term storage in what some experts considered a potential environmental and fire safety risk.

The company did not publicly announce the suspension of the recycling component of its program and had for months continued collecting large volumes of soft plastics including shopping bags, pet food bags, ice cream wrappers, bubble wrap and frozen food packaging.

A spokeswoman for REDcycle told The Age last month “several unforeseen challenges, exacerbated by the pandemic” meant that three companies that normally accepted the plastic for recycling were no longer doing so.

REDcycle had become almost entirely dependent on a single recycling operator, Close the Loop, to process its stock as the industry found it increasingly difficult to finding financially viable methods of converting soft plastic into usable materials.

The program’s collapse was set in train in June, when a fire at a Melbourne Close the Loop factory destroyed the Australian waste industry’s ability to recycle soft plastics.

The blaze took more than 50 firefighters about five hours to bring under control, forcing the closure of the Hume Highway in both directions.

Major supermarket Coles said in a statement they were made aware of warehouses where soft plastic collected through the program were stored and were working with authorities to find solutions.

“We are focused on working with government and other industry stakeholders to identify short-term solutions which will allow Australians to begin recycling their household soft plastics again.”

Woolworths said it was critical in the long term to build a robust recycling system for soft plastics across the country.

“Our current focus is on restoring community access to soft plastic recycling and as part of the Soft Plastics Taskforce, we’re working on solutions which will allow that to happen as soon as possible.”

A spokesperson for Aldi said they did not offer a national soft-plastics recycling program and had paused a program that was being trialled at 12 of their stores.

“We will continue to explore alternative solutions for soft-plastics recycling,” they said.

The South Australian EPA said on Friday it was working with the industry to determine whether there were any more stockpiling facilities.

Recycling is considered a high fire risk activity because of the highly flammable nature of plastic, paper and cardboard and the presence of flammable contaminants in stockpiles of recyclable steel and glass.

Soft plastics from consumers are one of the most difficult materials to recycle because they are frequently contaminated and often made from different types of plastics that are not easily processed.

REDcycle has been contacted for further comment.

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