<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/14/australias-backlog-of-soft-plastic-could-be-processed-overseas-before-supermarket-scheme-is-rebooted>
"Thousands of tonnes of soft plastic that was collected and dropped off by
supermarket customers, and has been stockpiled since the collapse of a domestic
recycling program, could be be shipped to the US for processing.
The Albanese government has indicated it would grant an exemption to allow
Coles, Woolworths and Aldi to send the plastic offshore for recycling despite a
national waste export ban announced by the Morrison government in 2019.
The supermarkets have announced they hope to start a new pilot program
collecting soft plastic at some sites before the end of the year, but it would
depend on first clearing more than 12,000 tonnes across sites stockpiled in New
South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
With no local recycling facilities available to deal with soft plastic at this
scale, the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the government would
support an export proposal “when there is an environmentally sound pathway for
processing this material for recovery purposes offshore”.
“Ideally, any exported soft plastics would be processed into recycled pellets
that can be remanufactured in Australia,” she said.
Sources said the sites being considered for recycling the soft plastic include
a facility in Texas. The supermarket chains are also in discussions with
recycling facilities in other countries.
It is unclear how much of the stockpiled soft plastic is still in good enough
condition to be recycled and how much has degraded. Some of it has been stored
for at least four years while the company contracted to run the scheme,
REDcycle, claimed it was being distributed for reuse and recycling."
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
