New stockpiles of soft plastics from the failed REDcycle recycling scheme have been uncovered as the work to develop an alternative program continues.
The program was wound up in November 2022 after it emerged that plastics consumers had returned to supermarkets to be recycled were instead put into storage.
In a joint statement, Coles and Woolworths said REDcycle – which has since gone into liquidation – had been “stockpiling soft plastics without our knowledge”.
“We have contacted the operators of every site to develop an action plan to ensure this material is stored safely,” the statement said.
Nineteen storage sites have been located in NSW, 15 in Victoria, six in South Australia, two in Tasmania, one in Queensland and one in Western Australia.
The REDcycle scheme was the only way most Australians could easily recycle their soft plastics.
Coles and Woolworths gained control of the stockpiles in late February and have formed a taskforce with Aldi to try to develop a new national scheme.
A report in Nine newspapers said while the number of stockpiles had gone up, the estimate of the amount of stored soft plastics – which initially stood at 12,350 tonnes – had fallen to 11,000 tonnes.
The statement said: “With new information continuing to come in, we’re navigating a complex range of sites and challenges, and we know this process will take time.
“We’re assessing logistics and warehousing arrangements for each stockpile on a case-by-case basis, as we continue to discuss recycling options with several reputable processors overseas.”
REDcycle previously said it was holding on to the waste while trying to ride out problems including the lack of recycling capacity. Almost 2,000 supermarkets used the program.
The supermarket giants have warned that setting up a new national scheme could be a slow process and are looking into shipping waste overseas to free up limited domestic recycling capacity.
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The joint statement from Coles and Woolworths added that the companies were working through the taskforce to develop “a new in-store recycling program to fill the gap” left by REDcycle’s collapse.
In a report last month, the taskforce said a pilot for a restart of in-store plastics collection was being targeted for late 2023.
But there was a shortage of local capacity to process the plastics, and an expansion beyond pilot projects in a limited number of areas could take until 2024 or 2025.
The ACCC gave a 12-month authorisation to the supermarkets to work together on the recycling problem.
The consumer watchdog’s deputy chair, Mick Keogh, said last month the REDcycle liquidation had “provoked a lot of community concern, and this proposed authorisation will allow the supermarkets to develop and implement a solution to potentially address the environmental risk of the existing stockpile of soft plastics and future waste”.