Addressing a wasteful problem

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is right to call on the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities & Investments Commission to consider investigating allegations that one of the nation’s largest recycling companies dumped more than 260 tonnes worth of plastics into landfill. As Ms Plibersek told The Australian: “I know that Australians who in good faith took the time to drop their soft plastics off at the local supermarket are as concerned as I am. If these allegations are correct, they would seem to raise matters that the ACCC, ASIC and other agencies may wish to investigate.”

On its website, REDcycle claims its program is a “true product stewardship model where manufacturers, retailers and consumers are sharing responsibility in creating a sustainable future”. Its goal was “to reduce the amount of plastic packaging going to landfill”. But, the site says, REDcycle had regrettably “temporarily paused its soft plastics collection program’’. It blamed the pause on a 350 per cent increase in plastics returned since 2019 and the fact that “due to several unforeseen challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, REDcycle’s recycling partners have temporarily stopped accepting and processing soft plastics. This combination has put untenable pressure on the REDcycle business model.”

As reported on Monday, REDcycle – which claimed to have collected up to five million plastic items a day from more than 2000 supermarkets – allegedly directed a Newcastle waste management facility to transport the product from a warehouse to the tip in March 2021. REDcycle had been stockpiling the plastic waste since early 2019 despite “fundamentally and profoundly” committing to keeping waste out of landfill and pledging materials would be stored only “in the short term”. The company assured customers recently that no stockpile of plastics had been sent to landfill and stored materials would be processed at a later date. Recycling, widely embraced by Australians, is vital to environmental protection. The industry was previously thrown into chaos in 2018 when China, for environmental reasons, stopped importing recyclable waste from Australia and other nations.