National Plastics Recycling Scheme | October 2022

| October 2022 |

Welcome to the first AFGC newsletter for the National Plastics Recycling Scheme (NPRS) project, the soft plastic packaging recycling scheme developed and led by Australia’s food and grocery manufacturing industry.

This newsletter provides an overview of the project and updates on progress, including the member companies already signed on as Foundation Supporters and the start dates for the upcoming trials of kerbside collection of soft plastic packaging.

What is the NPRS?

The National Plastics Recycling Scheme (NPRS) project is being developed by Australia’s food and grocery manufacturing industry with funding support from the federal government. The NPRS project is creating the framework for Australia’s largest industry-led plastics recycling scheme – one which will take hard-to-recycle soft plastic packaging out of waste streams and give it new life. The NPRS project will make it easier for people to recycle soft plastics at home and is creating a new advanced recycling industry here in Australia that will turn used soft plastics back into new food-grade packaging.

Expanded collection and new recycling capabilities create a circular plastics loop and cleaner recycling streams for all materials, including paper and cardboard. The NPRS project unites brand owners, manufacturers, recyclers and consumers in one powerful, nationwide scheme to transform our plastics problems into circular solutions. This is an important demonstration of our industry’s commitment to voluntary action on soft plastic packaging recycling.

How will it work?
Food and grocery manufacturers use packaging that can be recycled. The diagram below traces the path packaging takes, from consumers putting their used soft plastic packaging into a special bag to be collected at the kerbside in their recycling bin, through collection, sorting, processing and making plastic back into food-grade packaging.

Currently there are three gaps in the packaging supply chain that the NPRS project aims to address:

Collection of soft plastics;
Decontamination & processing; and
Conversion to bio crude, taking the product back to oil, ready to be remade into new plastic products.

What's happened so far?

Mapping the way forward

The AFGC received federal funding for the NPRS project in 2020 and since that time our work, and FMCG company commitments to purchase recycled content, have changed the landscape for soft plastics recycling in Australia. The leadership and commitment demonstrated through the NPRS has provided investment confidence, leading to announcements by several companies to make capital investments in new, advanced recycling infrastructure and a supply chain that can create food-grade recycled soft plastic packaging.

The project is now focused on scaled collection and has secured broad support from local councils and the waste and recycling industry for kerbside collection of soft plastics.

Foundation Supporters commit funds

As an industry-led scheme, there are some costs to be met. Several AFGC member companies signed up as Foundation Supporters and provided critical funds for the trials and pilot programs. The Foundation Supporters are: Arnott’s, Fonterra, George Weston Foods, Goodman Fielder, Haribo, Kellogg’s, Kimberly-Clark, Lactalis, Mars, Mayers Fine Food, Mondelez, Nestle, PepsiCo, S.C. Johnson, Simplot, UniCharm and Unilever.

The AFGC is also seeking government grant funding and contributions from councils and the waste and recycling industry.

Trials starting in November

Limited trials of kerbside collection will be carried out in select Local Government Areas across the country from November 2022 to March 2023. The trials will serve to:

Assess the incremental costs of soft plastics collection, which will assist in determining fees for the scheme and gaining ACCC authorisations
Assess the impact of collecting soft plastics in kerbside bins on the quality of recycled paper, and
Promote the industry’s leadership to federal, state and local governments

Trials are now confirmed for local councils in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Households in trial areas will receive specially produced kits containing information on what soft plastics can be recycled and how to recycle them. The kits will contain special recycling bags produced and printed for the trial. Participants will be instructed in how to fill the bags, close them and put them in their yellow-lid kerbside recycling bin.

The bins will be collected and taken to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) as usual. At the MRF, the recycling bags will be extracted from the waste stream and sent for sorting and processing. The trials will help design the model for kerbside collection and sorting, one that provides a clean stream of used soft plastics and can be scaled up for an emerging advanced recycling industry.

What’s happening next? Webinars and much more...
The AFGC will complete the NPRS project by the end of March 2023 and there will be a lot happening right up to the final day. Our regular newsletters will share the latest developments, while the AFGC Government and Media Relations team, working with participating councils, will keep key stakeholders up to date.

Webinars started in October, with sessions led by AFGC Sustainability Director Barry Cosier. Subsequent international sessions will include European and UK experts. If you're interested in learning more, please register for our NPRS webinar series, featuring AFGC sustainability staff and industry experts from Australia and overseas.

Get involved...
For more information about the NPRS project, webinars or to get involved in the scheme development visit the AFGC NPRS project page or email us via nprs@afgc.org.au.

This newletter is for AFGC members only. Please do not distribute outside your organisation.

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