Metcash and 7-Eleven have both joined the Australian Food & Grocery Council’s (AFGC) industry collaborative to recycle soft plastics, making them the first retailers to support the initiative.
The industry-led National Plastics Recycling Scheme (NPRS) aims to transform hard-to-recycle soft plastics destined for landfill into food grade packaging and other materials. The AFGC says this will be done through collecting household soft plastics from multiple collection channels, including kerbside, and “plugging gaps in the recycling chain to create a truly circular economy and a long-term solution to recycling soft plastics”.
7-Eleven and Metcash join over 40 brands including Nestle, Unilever and Fonterra already on board with the scheme.
AFGC says it is calling on all industries that use soft plastics, including manufacturers and retailers of fashion and general merchandise, to help resource this joint effort and build the processing infrastructure required to create a circular economy.
AFGC CEO Tanya Barden said, “We’re delighted to see Metcash and 7-Eleven joining this exciting industry initiative.
Collaboration with all parts of the packaging and recycling supply chain is central to advancing a sustainable circular economy for soft plastics in Australia.”
“But supermarkets and food and grocery suppliers cannot do this alone. This is bigger than any single industry, so we need everybody on board.”
The AFGC says the future success of the NPRS will allow participants to confidently access and make soft plastic packaging with recycled content for the Australian market. It fosters partnerships in the entire supply chain including recyclers, manufacturers, packagers, councils, waste collectors and retailers.
This coincides with a return-to-store soft plastics recycling trial in Melbourne by Coles, Woolworths and Aldi.
