Coles, Woolies offer to take on REDcycle’s plastics stockpile

Supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles said on Thursday that they’ve offered to assume responsibility for an estimated 12,000 tonnes of stockpiled soft plastic left behind by the collapsed REDcycle program.

REDcycle collected soft plastics from about 2,000 supermarkets around Australia. It was paused in November, and had been secretly stockpiling unprocessed plastic at sites around Melbourne after a fire at its Somerton factory ended its ability to process collected materials.

The two supermarket companies said they would contribute $1 million each to a fund covering the continued storage of the abandoned plastics.

Nine quotes a spokesperson as saying the supermarkets “will work to recycle as much of the material they are given as possible” though will assess if any of the material has degraded to the point where it’s unprocessable.

“The retailers’ ability to access and manage the stockpiles will require the cooperation of REDcycle, as the recycling company currently maintains control of the material and its storage arrangements across numerous locations,”

Federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek said that, “Australians went to great effort to sort and take their plastics back to supermarkets to ensure they were recycled by REDcycle.

“I am determined to ensure that this effort was not in vain, and that they can be confident their plastics won’t go to landfill.”

Coles and Woolworths, as well as Aldi, are part of a  government Soft Plastics Taskforce which will release a public roadmap next week on steps to resume collection systems around the country. 

“Today’s announcement is a really positive first step,” added Plibersek.

Picture: credit rethinkwaste.com.au