Ballarat embraces soft plastics recycling

More than 2,700 households are already diverting ‘scrunchable’ soft plastics from landfill, and recycling them, after the recent launch of the City of Ballarat’s new kerbside collection pilot program.

The 12-month kerbside soft plastics pilot enables residents to recycle their soft plastics in a City of Ballarat-supplied orange bag that can now be placed in residents’ yellow-lid recycling bin.

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.

Soft plastics can only be recycled in the supplied orange bags and should be empty and dry. The orange collection bags are made in Australia from 100 per cent recycled plastic.

City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Des Hudson has registered for the pilot program and is now recycling all of his household’s soft plastics.

“It is fantastic to once again be able to recycle soft plastics, which frees up space in my general waste bin,” he said.

“The trial is limited to 10,000 households so I encourage anyone who wants to recycle their soft plastics, and hasn’t yet registered, to do so.

“Recycling soft plastics allows them to be sorted, processed and ultimately transformed back into other products, keeps them out of landfill and gives them a new life.”

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 can contain up to 1kg of soft plastics. When the orange bag is full and tight like a basketball, residents can secure it with a double knot and place it in their fortnightly yellow-lid recyclables collection bin.

The City of Ballarat pilot program is being run in partnership with the Australian Food and Grocery Council.

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.