Macedon Ranges residents can join the expanded Shire-wide kerbside soft plastics recycling pilot, following an earlier trial in Romsey.
Starting last week, households can now register in-person at a Macedon Ranges Shire Council customer service centre to receive a free pack of 20 bags, and when full, households can then recycle the special orange collections bags into the yellow-lidded recycling bin for collection.
The pilot program is an extension of a 12-month trial in Romsey – part of the development of a proposed national pilot program led by the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) in partnership with over 40 household brands.
The Romsey-based trial chose just over 2200 locals to participate, with 1737 kilograms of soft plastic that would have otherwise gone to landfill recycled.
Mayor Annette Death said Council’s ongoing involvement in recycling alternatives for soft plastics reflected residents feedback and interest in the former RedCycle program.
“We are confident this pilot program will be used by even more households, given the convenience of using a special bag in their own bin,” she said.
“We welcome this initiative by the AFGC and are excited to continue this pilot partnership in our Shire. Soft plastics are currently a big part of our waste to landfill and cannot be efficiently collected for recycling in any other way.
“We hope that this expanded pilot benefits our residents and helps inform the next important phase of this scheme. It is important that many more households are able to recycle soft plastic into products made here in Australia.”
AFGC Director of Sustainability Barry Cosier said the expanded pilot was the next move for industry and governments to partner in designing a product stewardship scheme in Australia.
“We have been working with many companies and all levels of government on a solution for soft plastics,” he said.
“While soft plastics are useful for packaging everything from peas to bread, to parcels and garden mulch, we need large quantities to be efficiently collected to instil confidence to invest in recycling and to remanufacture it into recycled products and packaging again.”
Work is underway to better understand which households choose to recycle and the benefits of different collection methods, while brands continue to work towards the development of a proposed product stewardship scheme.
For more information about the soft plastic recycling pilot, call Council’s Resource Recovery team on 5422 0333, or visit www.mrsc.vic.gov.au/soft-plastics-trial.
