Remaining soft plastics recycling facilities inundated after REDcycle collapse as councils pick up the slack

Australia's remaining soft plastics recycling services are struggling to meet a huge surge in demand following last year's collapse of the scheme run inside Coles and Woolworths.

It's prompted extreme measures to limit how much waste the facilities receive, with one council-run service now checking recyclers' driver's licences before they can drop off their plastics.

It comes after the nation's largest soft plastics recycler, REDcycle, which collected soft plastics from Woolworths and Coles stores around Australia, was forced to halt collections last November when huge stockpiles of soft plastics were discovered in its warehouses.

READ MORE: How can you keep recycling soft plastics in Australia?

On Friday, Coles and Woolworths struck a deal with the NSW EPA to clean up thousands of tonnes of the material in an attempt to avoid it being consigned to landfill, but the future of soft plastic recycling by the supermarket giants remains unclear.

Environmentally conscious shoppers have been scrambling to find an alternative destination for their plastic waste since REDcycle's collapse.

In Sydney's north, the Thornleigh Community Recycling Centre saw the amount of soft plastic it was accepting more than double in a matter of weeks, as people reported travelling from all over the North Shore to use the free service.

Operated by Hornsby Council, the recycling centre has been collecting an array of hard-to-recycle goods without restrictions for more than three years, but has now restricted soft plastic recycling to residents only.

Workers at the centre are checking users' driver's licences or rates notices.

The volume of soft plastics residents can drop off has also been restricted to one 40cm by 40cm shopping bag per week.

READ MORE: Soft plastics were meant to be on the way out. What went wrong?

Despite the new restrictions, Hornsby Council estimates it will accept around 50 to 80 tonnes of soft plastic material in the next 12 months.

"We are delighted that so many people want to care for the environment by seeking opportunities to recycle soft plastics," a Hornsby Council spokesperson told 9news.com.au.

"However, there is currently significantly more soft plastic waste being generated than the processing and manufacturing capacity of the small numbers of factories in Australia that recycle it."

With supermarkets no longer an option, many more councils are starting up similar programs.

In Melbourne, Monash Council began accepting soft plastic waste from its residents last December in direct response to REDcycle's collapse.

These are recycled by Melbourne-based company APR Plastics, which converts mixed soft plastics into oil, which is then refined and remanufactured back into plastic products.

In Sydney's eastern suburbs, the Randwick Recycling Centre in Matraville is now accepting soft plastics again after being forced to halt operations with REDcycle's collapse.

Within a few days of launching on February 10, almost 100 residents had made use of the service.

"Randwick had been looking at soft plastics recycling ahead of (REDcycle's) collapse, but once that happened there was an overwhelming desire from our community," mayor Dylan Parker told 9news.com.au.

"Even my landlord was chewing my ear off saying, 'what are you doing about it?'.

"We can't just leave the community in the lurch."

READ MORE: How 'superworms' could solve Australia's plastic crisis

The mayor says he's reasonably confident their partnership with recycling firm Plasmar can accommodate local demand within their council, but it remains a small-scale stop-gap measure.

He is pushing for a national and state government approach to the problem.

It's a view that's shared by Eugenie Alonzo, who heads up Recycle Smart - an organisation that does home pick-ups of soft plastics as well as other items like old clothes and e-waste.

"Amongst all the items we collect, soft plastics are the one thing that crystalises everything," she said.

"It is the one thing that keeps on showing up because it is really hard to get rid of in your household."

Recycle Smart pick-ups are currently available in 16 councils across NSW and South Australia, with the soft plastics then sent off to APR Plastics in Victoria.

Alonzo says Recycle Smart is all about making recycling as easy as possible for Australians, but remains a small operation, with plans to ramp up operations to collect around 15 tonnes each month.

Their partner, APR Plastics, can currently process around a tonne of soft plastics per day.

READ MORE: Woolworths, Coles unveil major changes to plastic bag policies

By contrast, there are currently 5200 tonnes of soft plastics collected by REDcycle sitting in warehouses in New South Wales alone, with similar stockpiles in other states.

This means it would take an operation the size of APR Plastics 14 years to process the current NSW stockpile, assuming they worked 365 days a year and no other new waste came in.

"The reality is that state and federal governments are going to need to come up with a national solution working alongside major supermarkets in order to take soft plastics out of supply chains," Parker said.

"This is bigger than any one council or community."

But for now, it will be up to Coles and Woolworths to find a destination for the warehouses full of floor-to-ceiling plastic.

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