Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) CEO Chris Foley has delivered a candid message to members: Australia’s packaging targets were missed, the system settings are flawed, and reform must move beyond slogans to practical, enforceable change.
If the national packaging conversation feels different in 2026, Chris Foley says that’s because it is.
In a direct address to APCO members, the CEO pointed to growing momentum around reform – driven, he says, by evidence rather than opinion. Central to that shift is APCO’s joint project with the Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR), Securing Australia’s Plastic Recycling Future, released in January.
The report has “sparked the kind of attention our packaging system needs”, Foley said, prompting urgent conversations across governments and the value chain. Its core message is blunt: “Australia cannot ‘try harder’ its way to better packaging outcomes without changing the settings of the system.”
Industry wants certainty
Drawing on a year of consultations, Foley said industry feedback has been consistent.
“Industry wants clarity, certainty and equity. Not just ambition, but clear rules, consistent expectations, and the confidence that investment and effort will lead to measurable outcomes.”
He positioned APCO as a translator between policy ambition and operational reality – bringing to government the practicalities of compliance, data collection, investment barriers, and scalable reform.
That role is now extending into soft plastics stewardship. Foley confirmed APCO will soon announce how members can opt into the Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia scheme, with reporting and billing integrated through APCO membership. At the same time, APCO will pilot its new Stewardship Assurance Framework through the scheme to strengthen reporting integrity and claims verification.
Missed targets, hard truths
Foley was equally direct about the [2025] National Packaging Targets.
“We should be honest about this. The National Packaging Targets were not achieved.”
However, he argued the targets should remain as a benchmark – not a blame exercise. “The question is not who didn’t do enough. The question is which system levers make these outcomes impossible, or unnecessarily hard, to achieve at scale.”
He identified four persistent barriers: economics, inconsistent definitions and enforcement across jurisdictions, insufficient recovery capability, and consumer confusion caused by misaligned labelling and recovery pathways.
The Productivity Commission, he noted, reinforced similar themes last year – that markets alone will not reward better packaging outcomes, and fragmented policy settings undermine delivery at scale.
Jurisdictional pressure building
Foley highlighted growing regulatory focus in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, including stronger compliance scrutiny and moves toward clearer disposal labelling. APCO is working with NSW on labelling reform to ensure consistency with real recovery pathways.
He closed with a broader call to action.
“Packaging reform is not a slogan. It is a set of decisions about standards, incentives, accountability, and system design. If we want better outcomes, we have to adjust the settings that drive outcomes.”
For an industry under mounting regulatory and public pressure, the focus on packaging reform is sharpening, and APCO is positioning itself to help shape what comes next.
