Updated 4 September: There are several promising projects getting underway, already up and running, or in partial stages of completion for soft plastics collection and recycling in Australia. If all the claims of proposed capacity are taken at face value, it appears we are getting closer to solving the complex challenge of managing the waste stream for this hard-to-recycle material.
The collapse of REDcycle in November 2022 brought the flaws in the soft plastics collection and recycling system in Australia into sharp focus. As was widely reported at the time, 11,000 tonnes of collected material had not been processed, and was stored in warehouses around the country. Responding quickly, the major supermarkets (who had been in partnership with REDcycle) formed the Soft Plastic Taskforce in a bid to find a solution to the broken system, having been given temporary permission to do so by the ACCC. Fast track to July 2024 and the 11,000 tonnes still remain unprocessed due to a shortage of local recycling capacity. Conceding that this has made it impossible for the Taskforce to progress, the ACCC has extended the interim approval for this collaboration to continue, considering advances being made on infrastructure development that should come on stream this year or next.
On the collection front, the AFGC continues to push forward on its National Plastics Recycling Scheme that has national kerbside collection at its core, with the idea that this could be a system that works in parallel with an in-store collection scheme – on the cards to be reinstated by the supermarkets, with the Taskforce currently running pilot trials for consumer drop-off of soft plastics in select stores. The NPRS is supported by over 40 brands including Nestle, Mars, Unilever and Fonterra already on board with the scheme, and retailers 7-eleven and Metcash also getting behind it.
Separately, another collection scheme, Curby, which started in 2020, is continuing to conduct its local-council based collection schemes in select suburbs, supplying post-consumer feedstock to companies like iQRenew.
RECYCLING INFRASTRUCTURE
Which brings me to the recycling infrastructure update, starting with mechanical recycling. iQRenew has recently opened its new mechanical recycling plant for processing post-consumer soft plastics only, with a 15,000 tonne per annum capacity.
The new advanced mechanical recycling plant for soft plastics for Recycling Plastics Australia announced on 19 July is slated for opening in 2025 in Adelaide, and will have a 14,000 tonne per annum capacity, processing post-industrial and post-consumer soft plastic.
Meanwhile, Pro-Pac Packaging has received the second instalment of $4.9 million of a Modern Manufacturing Initiative Government grant ($10.5 million received to date) to establish a soft plastics mechanical recycling facility in Albury. The facility is designed to process up to 15,000 tonnes annually of LDPE soft plastic waste such as pallet and silage wrap. The output of the plant will be high-quality recycled resin capable of going back into the same product applications. The facility is due to come online in late 2025, just in time for the proposed recycled content mandate. The proposed facility site is co-located alongside the Circular Plastics Australia plastic recycling facility, which produces recycled PET. The company says the addition of this facility will expand the technology and capability of the Nexus precinct to create a world-class circular economy hub for plastics.
It has also recently been announced that Pro-Pac has received $8.5m from the Recycling Modernisation Fund (RMF) for three new film extrusion lines that will be tailored for maximising recycled content in high performance low gauge films. These lines will be located in Pro-Pac’s existing Perth and Melbourne facilities and are due to come online in 2025 and 2026 respectively.
Also in Victoria, recycling company Naula in Altona has received more than $5 million in RMF funding to build Australia’s first large-scale Feedstock Preparation Facility for the advanced sorting and processing of up to 32,000 tonnes of soft and mixed plastics products each year, to refine them to produce new plastics such as food-grade packaging, while Sustainable Plastic Solutions has received more than $4 million to install recycling technology to process an additional 8000 tonnes each year of agricultural plastics such as films, grain tarp and baling twine into high quality resins for remanufacturing back into original products.
Close the Loop’s Tonerplas facility, which opened in Melbourne in February, processes mixed soft plastic (post-consumer and post-industrial) for use in its Tonerplas material for roads, but is not yet performing to the capacity originally anticipated. The company has announced it will be relocating this facility, as news comes that it has just been awarded a federal government grant of some $2.2m to commission a second TonerPlas facility, which will be constructed outside of Victoria.
Meanwhile, Olympic Polymers in Melbourne is successfully processing both post-consumer and post-industrial soft plastics at a capacity of around 16,000 tonnes per annum, but importantly has taken its technology to the next level, developing an industry-first ISCC-certified PCR film.
On the advanced chemical recycling side, APR Kerbside is currently processing soft plastic in its WASTX pyrolysis pilot plant, partnering with the National Plastics Recycling Scheme, packaging converters and brand owners to process post-industrial and post-consumer soft plastics back into crude oil for remanufacturing into packaging. The company says plans are in place to scale up to a full-size facility.
And then there’s the much-vaunted Licella plant, which has seen investment from flexibles giant Amcor and multinational brand owner Mondelez International. This is slated for commissioning in the second half of 2025 and will have the capacity in phase one to process 20,000 tonnes per annum, with later phases extending capacity to 120,000 tonnes.
Finally, in 2022 US company Brightmark announced its intention to build a mixed plastics advanced chemical recycling facility in Parkes, NSW, capable of processing 200,000 tons of plastic waste, including hard to recycle variants. Construction was to have started in 2023, with the plant is expected to be in operation by 2025. PKN reached out to Brightmark for an update on the plant’s progress, and received this response: "The construction of Brightmark’s planned circularity centre in Parkes has not commenced at this time, but the company is currently in the project's permitting stage and looks forward to its completion."
So, there’s a lot going on, but here’s the thing… for every ‘good news’ story I report, I have several off-the-record conversations disputing the truth of the claims made by recyclers, or the real state of progress in collection schemes, or the economic feasibility of proposed projects. It’s confusing, with facts at times difficult to verify, and the last thing one wants to do is to perpetuate any greenwashing. But I am choosing to err on the side of positive. There is progress. There is investment. Legislation around plastic waste, including mandated recycled content is imminent. It’s game on for soft plastics.
I invite your feedback, on or off the record. Contact me at lindyhughson@yaffa.com.au
