Australians overwhelmingly want soft plastics recycling to return – and stay.
New consumer research from Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia (SPSA) reveals how households engage with soft plastic recycling once it’s available, and what makes participation easiest.
Webinar: Insights into Soft Plastic Collection Pilots and Community Feedback
In this third session of The Global Stewardship Playbook, experts will share learnings from recent collection pilots in UK, Australia, and New Zealand and what they mean for brand strategy, regulation, governments and recycling infrastructure.
Thursday 4 December | 9am AEDT (8am AEST)
Featuring expert speakers from:
- SPSA
- EcoSurety (UK)
- Packaging Forum’s SPRS (NZ)
- Bastion Insights
- MRA Consulting
- One Planet Consulting
About soft plastics progress
Approximately 40 of Australia’s largest brands are voluntarily supporting soft plastic recycling in Australia. Some supermarkets have recommenced in-store collection voluntarily but new, innovative ways to capture much higher volumes of soft plastics are being trialed – read about the highly successful council trials of soft plastic household collection >
The Australian Government has proposed packaging regulatory reforms including: packaging design standards, including the inclusion of recycled content and designing for packaging recyclability together with targeted collection and recycling rates. Governments at national and state levels are also incentivising companies to invest in building new sorting and recycling facilities for soft plastics.
An independent not-for-profit product stewardship scheme is being established by Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia (SPSA). SPSA has been created to overcome the challenges of soft plastic recycling and, subject to ACCC authorisation, plans to use levies raised from brand owners and retailers to fund areas of market failure across the supply chain.
All businesses who produce or use soft plastic are encouraged to get involved and understand their role.