'We need more plastic': Australian recyclers call to stop waste exports

Recycling company director Clive Townsend says more waste should stay in Australia for local processing. (ABC News: Tara Whitchurch) The plastics recycling industry says too much plastic waste is being sent offshore, pushing up the price of the product locally. The ABC can reveal the federal government is winding back legal exemptions on the export of waste, but operators want more to be done. The Greens are calling for mandated packaging laws on local recycled content. Link copiedShareShare articleAustralian soft plastics recycling companies are warning that the industry is at a breaking point because too much waste is being sent overseas, pushing up the price locally. A ban on exporting recyclable waste came into effect from 2021, but the government granted dozens of exemptions to give the recycling industry time to build up capacity. Now the soft plastics industry says too much product is being exported, both through those legal exemptions and through potential criminal operators selling waste offshore at a higher rate than it can attract in Australia. The ABC can reveal the federal government has written to the recycling industry, confirming the export exemptions will be wound back, but operators want more to be done to keep plastic waste in Australia. Australian Soft Plastics Recycling processes packaging from supermarket pallets. (ABC News: Tara Whitchurch) At Australian Soft Plastics Recycling, in Melbourne's outer south-east, big bales of clear soft plastics line the factory walls, delivered on trucks from industry. It is the plastic used to wrap pallets of groceries when they arrive to be unpacked onto supermarket shelves, so it's mostly clean — only about 10 per cent of it can't be recycled, such as plastic labels. But it still needs to be sorted, cleaned and sorted again, before it can be melted down and shaped into little pellets, which are sold to make plastic products like insulation, builders' film or the sound barriers on the side of freeways. Clive Townsend says inconsistent supplies of soft plastics make it difficult to increase local operations. (ABC News: Tara Whitchurch) The company's director of growth and partnerships, Clive Townsend, said they were recycling about 350 tonnes of plastic waste a month, but would like to more than double that. If only they could get their hands on that amount of product. "We can't get enough — we're paying a lot, but it's just not available," he said. Without wanting to go into prices, Mr Townsend said plastic waste had become vastly more expensive over the past few years. He said availability fluctuated, making it hard to scale up the business. The company has written to the federal government, warning that without policy change, domestic recyclers may be forced offshore. "If we don't have the feedstock, we can't meet the scale, and currently we're way under scale," he said. He's concerned some operators are exporting overseas, where they can recycle it without paying Australian wages and taxes. Clive Townsend says Australian recyclers cannot source adquate supplies of soft plastics. (ABC News: Tara Whitchurch) "We're able to employ, invest and grow that product base so we're value adding our waste in Australia," Mr Townsend said. The factory is full of piles of plastic waste, but the main type is transparent plastic from industry, known as back-of-house plastic. About 90 per cent can be recycled. Household plastics like the sort collected by the failed REDcycle program typically contain a much higher rate of contamination — about 40 per cent. The company has to pay for the plastics it cannot recycle to be sent to a landfill. Household plastics can be contaminated with non-recyclable material, such as product labels. If more volume came through the factory, Mr Townsend said the company could invest in new technologies to recycle different plastics. "There's a lot of investment in removing contaminants and waste attached — labels, adhesive, it's a tricky end of the business," he said. He said the war in Iran showed the need for a local industry. "That's provided a real opportunity because it demonstrates the need for sovereign capability." Australian Council of Recycling chief executive Suzanne Toumbourou said the broader recycling industry was having trouble accessing enough plastic waste to recycle. She welcomed news the federal government would wind back export exemptions, but said the industry had reported possible illegal exports, especially for companies recycling the back-of-house, cleaner soft plastics. "They are noticing that a fair bit of material is leaving the country illegally," she said. "Illegal exports is a vexed subject for our sector, particularly given so many recyclers have invested deeply in processing in Australia and we have a real lack of confidence that those rules are being enforced." Suzanne Toumbourou says Australian recyclers are reporting plastic waste being exported illegally. (ABC News:

'We need more plastic': Australian recyclers call to stop waste exports

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'We need more plastic': Australian recyclers call to stop waste exports

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