At its half-way point, more than 5,000 households across Ballarat have opted into a 12-month pilot program allowing them to recycle their 'scrunchable' soft plastics.
The City of Ballarat and the Australian Food and Grocery Council launched the 12-month kerbside soft plastics recycling collection pilot program in July last year, meaning the program will reach the six-month milestone mark this week.
Since the launch of the pilot in Victoria, 16,229kg of soft plastics have been diverted from landfill across the City of Ballarat and just one other participating council.
The soft plastics that residents recycle will be included in a circular solution to turn them back into quality products or packaging, as part of plans to develop a long-term circular system for soft plastic packaging waste.
The pilot program has space for 10,000 households.
City of Ballarat Mayor Cr Tracey Hargreaves said the pilot program was performing strongly.
"It is heartening to see that Ballarat households have filled more than half of the allocated spaces in the pilot program," she said.
"I'd encourage as many people as possible to sign up to the pilot program and divert their scrunchable soft plastics from going to landfill."
Soft plastics can only be recycled in the supplied orange bags and should be empty and dry. The orange bags are made in Australia from 100 per cent recycled plastic.
Scrunchable soft plastics include bread and cereal bags, frozen vegetable packets, lolly wrappers, bubble and cling wrap as well as plastic toilet paper wrap. You can also look for the former REDCycle logo or the Australian Recycling Label 'Return to Store' or 'In-store Drop-off' logo.
The supplied orange bags must be filled tightly like a basketball and secured with a double knot. Residents can then place the orange bag in their fortnightly yellow lid recycling bin.
The orange-bagged soft plastics are being collected and transported to APR Kerbside in Truganina, where they will be sorted, cleaned and shredded for research and development testing for recycling back into packaging or other products.
With just under 5,000 places left on the pilot program, it's not too late to sign up.
To register for the soft plastics kerbside collection visit ballarat.vic.gov.au/property/waste/recycling-ballarat or call Customer Service on 5320 5500. After registering, residents can pick-up their orange bags from one of the designated locations.
Please remember to keep all other recycling items loose in your bin and never put loose soft plastics directly into your yellow-lid recycling bin. Loose plastics can damage collection trucks and recycling machinery.
Fast facts:
- 5,287 households have opted into the soft plastics kerbside collection pilot program.
- 90 households have requested additional bags after collecting their initial supply.
Soft plastics that CAN be recycled
- Scrunchable soft plastic packaging that easily folds in your hand:
- Empty and dry big bags from pet food and mulch
- Bags for food such as chips, bread, cereal and sweets
- Film wrapping like bubble and cling wrap
- Soft plastics that have any of these numbers - 2, 4 and 5
TIP: Look for the old REDcycle logo on the label and/or the Australian Recycling Label (ARL) "Return To Store" or "In-store Drop-off" logo. These items can be included in your bag.
Note: This pilot is not connected to REDCycle.
Soft plastics that CAN NOT be recycled
- Any rigid containers, such as bottles, cans, takeaway containers:
- Remove all small parts - no lids, bread tags, desiccant sachets, straws or balloons
- No compostable or degradable plastics or products with the labels 1, 3, 6 or 7
- No dirty or wet plastics and no food residue.
TIP: Your soft plastics collection bag is going to Australian manufacturers to make high quality products, so please ensure they only get clean and dry soft plastic.
