An Australian-developed recycling solution that enables dairy processors to recover, recycle and remanufacture HDPE milk bottles on-site has taken out the 2026 Outside of the Box Design award.
The gold-winning Milk Bottle Recycling System, developed by Popit Recycling in partnership with Martogg and Procal Dairies, was recognised for rethinking the economics of milk bottle recycling by bringing recovery and reprocessing closer to where the bottles are used.
Rather than relying on conventional large-scale recycling infrastructure, the system enables food-service customers to return empty HDPE milk bottles in their original crates. The bottles are then processed on-site using Popit, a compact hot-wash recycling plant designed and manufactured in Australia.
The modular system automatically empties returned crates, scans bottles, removes contaminants and converts the plastic into clean recycled HDPE flakes ready for reuse. According to the developers, the smaller footprint and lower capital cost make on-site recycling commercially viable, while reducing transport requirements, improving traceability and supporting a genuinely closed-loop system.
Viscount received silver for its Nally Folding MegaBin, while Result Group and the Australian Table Grapes Association took bronze for Scaling Traceability.
