Supermarkets chains such as Coles, Woolworths, Drakes and Foodland, have paused the collection of soft plastics for recycling.

REDcycle paused the collection of soft plastics from Coles and Woolworths late last year.

This led to an increase in people taking their soft plastics to Drakes and Foodland who use YCA Recycling.

YCA Recycling has been overwhelmed with soft plastics and have since had to pause soft plastics recycling as well.

REDcycle and YCA Recycling are the only companies that accept soft plastics for recycling in Australia.

The supermarket soft plastic collection programs are expected to recommence within 3-4 months.

In the meantime, you may wish to store soft plastics in readiness for these programs starting back up.

Otherwise if you cannot reuse the soft plastics you will need to dispose of the soft plastics to general waste (red lid bin).

To minimise your environmental impact, you can avoid purchasing products with soft plastics, and look to purchase recycled plastic products.

The reason why soft plastic recycling has come to a halt, is because there’s not enough people buying the products they are made into.

For all waste, follow the Waste Management Hierarchy in this order: Avoid; Reduce; Reuse; Recycle

https://www.epa.sa.gov.au/environmental_info/waste_recycling