<
https://www.theage.com.au/national/millions-more-plastic-bags-bound-for-landfill-unless-recycling-scheme-can-restart-20230131-p5cgqu.html>
"Hundreds of millions of plastic bags have been sent to landfill since the
collapse of Australia’s largest soft-plastics recycling scheme as government
and industry efforts fail to revive the popular program.
The federal government has created a soft-plastics taskforce and earmarked $60
million in funding to help businesses invest in recycling infrastructure. But
sources close to the taskforce say a revival of the scheme – which collected
plastic from Coles and Woolworths stores – is delayed indefinitely because
Australia lacks the market demand and infrastructure to recycle soft plastics
on a mass scale.
REDcycle had been collecting about 150 million plastic items from nearly 2000
supermarkets across the country each month, but it was revealed last year that
it had been secretly stockpiling the plastic in various locations after a
factory fire destroyed its ability to recycle soft plastics.
Consumers were told to dump their plastics in rubbish bins, rather than the
signature red bins, following the program’s collapse in early November.
According to the organisation, it had recycled more than 5.4 billion items
since it was founded a decade ago.
Members of the soft-plastics taskforce include Coles, Woolworths and Aldi, and
they were given a special exemption to anti-cartel laws by the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission allowing the chains to act co-operatively.
But the taskforce has so far failed to lock in any short-term solution that
would lead to the highly popular service being relaunched."
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
