Coles and Woolworths granted more time to deal with REDcycle waste in hope of saving it from landfill
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/coles-and-woolworths-given-more-time-to-deal-with-redcycle-waste/103908010

REDcycle was never about recycling.
The "return-to-store" soft plastics program was never about recycling.
Those thick, soft plastic bags were never about "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle".
Calling plastic bags "multi-use" was a lie intended to transfer the responsibility of dealing with plastic to customers.
It was about telling customers they could continue using plastic bags. Supermarkets didn't want to change how they do things, and they didn't want to deal with the marginally increased cost of using paper bags. That's it.

The government should be suing supermarkets into the dirt for their years of fraud, malpractice, and environmental vandalism.

In the meantime, the fix is far more straightforward than the naysayers claim:
- Do not let retailers "self-regulate" use of plastics.
- Make it illegal to give customers plastic bags.

#AusPol #REDcycle #Coles #Woolies #Plastic #PlasticBags #Recycling

REDcycle’s collapse and the hard truths on recycling soft plastics in Australia
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/30/redcycles-collapse-and-the-hard-truths-on-recycling-soft-plastics-in-australia

Finally, the mainstream media has discovered the scam.

A few months ago, I wrote about supermarkets greenwashing by offering non-existent recycling programmes:
https://rants.au/@BinChicken/111378843288140672
This scam is an excuse for supermarkets and food companies not to change their packaging and a feel-good exercise for customers who don't care about their effect on the environment as consumers.

#Greenwashing #Recycling #Environment #Woolies #Coles #PlanetArk #REDcycle

No, I'm fairly certain that the key failing of the #REDcycle program is that trying to recycle soft plastic is completely uneconomical and, therefore, they just stored it all in warehouses. Sure, they produced the odd park bench as a PR stunt, but that's all they could ever have been.

If they truly only collected one or two percent of soft plastics, and they utterly failed to manage to handle that, then, no, collecting more would definitely not be the solution. Whoever this Tanya Barden person is, she's either lying to save face, or naive as hell.

Because virgin plastic is a waste product of fossil fuel production, it will always be cheap. As long as crude oil and other such things continue to be refined into fossil fuels, recycling plastic is just not a viable option in 98% of situations.

#auspol

The soft plastics issue in Oz is a fucking crisis! WhatDoYouMean on YT breaks down the glorious clusterfuck that is the REDcycle's failed "because of its overwhelming success" soft plastic recycling business plan.

#REDcycle #SoftPlastics #Recycling

https://youtu.be/lpDlwiF7v3Q

soooo it's been quite a while now since the #RedCycle program was paused, and while it was problematic in the first place (https://www.abc.net.au/education/war-on-waste-what-happens-to-plastic-packaging/13723580), does anybody know if we're any closer to a new soft plastics recycling program in Australia?

Or, even better, any closer to getting as many soft plastics as possible out of the retail landscape?

#RedCycle #Recycling #Plastics #SoftPlastics #Australia

This is such an unmitigated disaster !! Clearly the partnership between the large supermarket chains, #Coles & #Woolworths, and #Redcycle was quite pathetic & poorly implemented. #softPlastics

https://www.smh.com.au/national/coles-woolworths-ordered-to-dump-tonnes-of-redcycle-soft-plastics-in-landfill-20230131-p5cgok.html?instance=2023-02-03-14-51-AEDT&jobid=29514368&list_name=10093_smh_breakingnews&mbnr=MjAxODMxMjg&promote_channel=edmail&utm_campaign=breaking-news-smh&utm_content=STORY&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=2023-02-03