Call for urgent action on recycling fail

The calls come amid ‘disgraceful’ revelations that more than 260 tonnes of plastics were allegedly dumped into landfill.

The Australian on Monday revealed allegations REDcycle – which claimed to have collected up to five million plastic items a day from more than 2000 supermarkets – directed a Newcastle waste facility to transport the product from a warehouse to the tip in March 2021.

A coalition of national, state and local environmental bodies has called for the federal government to intervene into the recycling sector amid “disgraceful” revelations that one of the nation’s largest ­recycling companies allegedly dumped more than 260 tonnes of plastics into landfill.

The Australian on Monday revealed allegations REDcycle – which claimed to have collected up to five million plastic items a day from more than 2000 supermarkets – directed a Newcastle waste facility to transport the product from a warehouse to the tip in March 2021.

The claims prompted Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to suggest the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities & Investments Commission could look into the issue.

Boomerang Alliance national director Jeff Angle said the claims would heap pressure on the ­federal government to implement tough regulations on the packaging sector amid concern they would reduce public confidence in the recycling industry.

The peak body represents 56 national, state and local environmental bodies including the Australian Conservation Foundation, Clean Up Australia, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Sea Shepherd Australia, and the Australian Marine Conservation Society.

“It is a disgraceful revelation that will only serve to reduce public confidence in voluntary recycling schemes,” Mr Angle said.

“The REDcycle collapse has ongoing revelations about stockpiling, and the failure of packaging to use the material as recycled products must be such a shock to the system that the new government leverages the shock to ­impose a mandatory product stewardship scheme on the packaging sector.

“This is what happens when the packaging and retail industry pretend they have an answer to a very big problem.”

The Department of Environment is expected to hold an emergency meeting with supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths this week after REDcycle announced a temporary pause on collections.

REDcycle had been stockpiling the plastic waste since early 2019 despite “fundamentally and profoundly” committing to keeping waste out of landfill and pledging that materials would only be stored “in the short term”.

It assured customers as recently as this month that no stockpile of plastics had been sent to landfill and all stored materials would be processed at a later date.

Greens environmental spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young joined calls for the government to regulate the sector, urging Labor to implement national packaging targets as well as invest in infrastructure to process soft plastics.

She said the consumer watchdog and corporate regulator both had a role to play in keeping companies purporting to recycle to account. “It is unacceptable that REDcycle dumped soft plastics in landfill and took so long to admit it had a problem,” she said.

“The minister can do right by the environment, and grow the industry and create jobs. Australians want to recycle, and should be able to have confidence their waste is indeed being recycled.”

Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association Australia chief executive Gayle Sloan said it was “greatly disappointing” that the company had failed to alert consumers of longstanding problems. She said it revealed serious flaws in Australia’s recycling scheme, but that the onus was on producers of plastic to take responsibility for their waste.