It’s Plastic Free July, an opportunity to think about packaging choices that support a circular economy, by reducing our use of single-use plastic and opting for products that are recyclable in the kerbside bin. 

Correctly recycling soft plastic is important 

When soft plastic is necessary, ensuring it’s properly disposed of is critical to maintaining our recycling systems. 

If you can, take your soft plastics to one of 700 soft plastic collection points across Australia. If you can’t, they should go in your (red-lidded) rubbish bin.  

By correctly disposing of soft plastics and keeping them out of your kerbside recycling bin, you can help us keep more material out of landfill.  

Our materials recovery facilities (MRFs) are designed to sort and process recyclable materials from your home. However, they’re not equipped to handle all types of plastics. Soft plastics—such as bags and wrappers—can cause damage equipment and disrupt the recycling process. 

When soft plastics enter a MRF they can: 

  • become entangled in equipment, leading to unplanned shutdowns 
  • contaminate other recyclable materials, making them harder to sort and recover 
  • increase operational and safety risks. 

Sorting is essential because otherwise soft plastics get tangled in our MRFs. Our handy resources make recycling easy: 

 

Visy’s easy swaps for single-use plastic 

We’re developing new products to help ditch soft, single-use plastics.  

Here are some of our fibre-based alternatives: 

  • Visy Paper bubble wrap provides shock-proof cushioning for storing, moving or shipping items. Compared to plastic bubble wrap it uses 73% less energy over its lifetime when recycled. 
  • Paper bags are recyclable and a widely recoverable alternative for a range of retail applications. 
  • Visy Tread is a fibre-based temporary surface protection, made in Australia from 100% recycled materials. Perfect for builders, painters, moving companies and DIY enthusiasts. 
  • Visycell is an Australian-made, fibre-based thermal insulation and shock protectant that is a more sustainable alternative to expanded polystyrene and is recyclable through the kerbside recycling bin.