Councils are turning to a Sydney-based start-up to handle hard to recycle materials, like soft plastic, after the collapse of collection service REDcycle.

Residents in Melbourne, Bayside, Boroondara, City of Yarra, Darebin, Glen Eira, Melbourne, Merri-bek, Port Phillip and Stonnington councils can access doorstep collection of soft plastics and other recyclable materials they can’t put in their bins through RecycleSmart – however, it comes at a cost to residents.

Eugenie Alonzo, chief marketing officer of RecycleSmart, said the service is available in more than 30 council areas, but only those partnered with the company will receive the service for free.

Randwick City, Camden, Willoughby, Sutherland Shire, Mosman, Inner West, Burwood, Penrith, Hunters Hill, North Sydney, Lane Cove, Campbelltown and Maitland councils, all in New South Wales, have partnered with RecycleSmart to offer regular and free pick-ups, which is usually two bags every six to eight weeks.

In areas where they aren’t partnered, residents will have to pay $10 for two shopping bags worth of recycled materials, which can also include clothes and textiles, e-waste, polystyrene, batteries and lightbulbs.

Ms Alonzo said the company has only recently launched doorstep pick-ups directly to customers because there was a demand for the service.

Soft plastics collected by the company are sent to APR Plastics, based in Victoria, where it is recycled into oil.

A spokesperson for Yarra City Council said while residents who choose to use private providers like RecycleSmart will need to pay for those services, there are alternative options provided by the council.

“Council provides our community with the option of dropping off their soft plastics to our Recycling Centre in Clifton Hill, free of charge,” the spokesperson said.

REDcycle collapse

When REDcycle, a soft plastic recycling program offered through supermarkets, collapsed and left around 12,000 tonnes of stockpiled material in warehouses, it left individuals, councils and businesses scrambling to find an alternative soft plastic recycling solution.

REDcycle bins were located inside supermarkets where consumers could return their soft plastic packing. Photo: TND

A spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said growing Australia’s recycling and circular economy infrastructure, including for soft plastics, is a priority for the government.

“The government helped bring the big supermarkets together to resolve the problems created by the collapse of REDcycle. Since then, the supermarkets have announced they will take responsibility for soft plastic stockpiles and announced a pathway to resume collection of soft plastics,” the spokesperson said.

“The government is investing $250 million in upgraded recycling infrastructure including $60 million for hard to recycle plastics, like soft plastics. Twelve of the new plastic recycling facilities have already been delivered.”

New national packaging regulations will also include design standards for recycled content, with mandatory targets to enforce them.

End product

Suzanne Toumbourou, CEO of the Australian Council of Recycling, said if there is no industry to use the recycled materials, any collection scheme will fail.

“What REDcycle showed us is that you can have some infrastructure to process, which I guess in that situation fell a bit short, but if you don’t have the market to pull this through, you don’t have a recycling system,” she said.

“We need to make sure we aren’t just collecting and we’re not just processing, but we are creating markets for that material.”

Sixty per cent of materials earmarked for recycling in Australia were reused, according to a February report from the Australian Circular Economy Hub.

Waste generation in Australia has grown by 20 per cent in the past 15 years, however, during this same period the population has grown 25 per cent.

Ms Toumbourou said waste is a burden that often flies under the radar, but it is important to remember there is always a cost of materials, whether it is environmentally, economically or socially.

“We just need to do it in a smarter way and make sure that cost is distributed equitably,” she said.

“User pays could be a good way, whereby if you consume a product, you need to be engaging with the cost of it.”