<
https://www.theage.com.au/national/coles-woolworths-recycling-scheme-collapses-after-secret-stockpiles-revealed-20221107-p5bw9q.html>
"Australia’s largest plastic bag recycling program has collapsed amid
revelations hundreds of millions of bags and other soft plastic items dropped
off by customers at Coles and Woolworths are being secretly stockpiled in
warehouses and not recycled.
Instead of being taken to companies that use the plastic to make other items,
REDcycle has been transporting the plastic to warehouses for long-term storage
in what some experts consider a potential environmental and fire safety risk.
The Melbourne-based company, which claims to collect up to 5 million plastic
items a day from public drop-off points at nearly 2000 supermarkets across the
country, did not publicly announce the suspension of the recycling component of
its program, and has for months continued collecting large volumes of soft
plastics including shopping bags, pet food bags, ice cream wrappers, bubble
wrap and frozen food packaging.
The plastics collected are usually sent to other companies, where they are used
as ingredients in concrete, asphalt, street furniture, bollards and shopping
trolleys.
On Tuesday evening, after questions from this masthead, REDcycle announced it
would suspend its collection program from Wednesday due to “untenable pressure”
on its business model.
Woolworths apologised to customers on Tuesday. Coles declined to comment about
when it became aware REDcycle was collecting plastic from its supermarkets that
were not being recycled."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
