Community members currently participating in Alpine Shire Council's soft plastics recycling scheme can once again collect their soft plastic recycling bags from the Council office in Bright, as well as Alpine Libraries and Visitor Information Centres
Alpine Shire Mayor, Cr Sarah Nicholas, reflected on the success of the program since its introduction in August 2024.
"It has been terrific that, alongside residents of Albury, Indigo Shire, and Wodonga, community members across our region have been able to recycle their soft plastics over the past couple of years," she said.
"In Alpine Shire alone, we have had just over 1,200 registrations, including households that have collected their second or third pack of orange soft plastic recycling bags.
"Through the program, we have been able to recycle our hard-to-avoid day-to-day soft plastics, including cling wrap, silver-lined chip packets, and dog-food bags, by placing them into the special orange bags and dropping these into our yellow-lidded kerbside recycling bins.
"This is a terrific outcome for rural and regional towns like ours, to know what we can achieve for our environment through our collective efforts, and we say a huge thanks to all the people who worked behind the scenes to provide this opportunity."
Originally an initiative of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, the program is now under the management of Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia (SPSA), which has emphasised a commitment to closing the loop and is advocating for a national approach to soft plastic recycling.
Cr Nicholas said that, under SPSA, Alpine Shire is now one of nine councils participating in kerbside drop-off, with in-store drop-off reintroduced in supermarkets across other parts of Australia, including in Melbourne and other places in Victoria.
"We encourage community members to register for the program so that we can show SPSA the success of kerbside drop off, not only rural and regional townships, but for people across the entire country" she said.
"If you haven't signed up to the program yet, now's your chance to register.
"By recording our number of registrations, we can track participation data and help support the scheme to continue."
SPSA is an industry-led, not-for-profit organisation that aims to reduce national reliance on virgin plastics by increasing soft plastic recycling rates across Australia to support the development of a circular economy.
It is a requirement of the program that participants use the orange bags provided so that their soft plastics can be sorted appropriately at the recycling centre, located in Victoria.
Cr Nicholas emphasised the importance of filling up the orange bags so that they are approximately the size of an adult-sized basketball, or at least 1kg in weight.
"The reason we need to stuff our orange bags is so that we can help reduce the cost of the program and, most importantly, save plastic," she said.
"We are finding that people are only filling up their bags halfway before moving onto the next one, so they're running out of them quickly and having to pick up more.
"We distribute 20 bags in each pack, which means that, by filling each bag as much as you can, it could take as long as 20 months to go through one pack.
"All soft plastics are required to be clean and dry, so smell should not be a problem."
Community members can create more space in their orange bags by:
- Filling old bread bags, or other soft plastic bags, first, and then stuffing these bags into their orange bags
- Cutting up their bulkier soft plastics, like bubble wraps or pet food bags, into smaller pieces
When the orange bags are full, they need to be tied off with a firm double knot and placed in the yellow-lidded kerbside recycling bin for fortnightly collection.
For more information about the Residential Soft Plastics Recycling Program, visit https://www.alpineshire.vic.gov.au/residents-ratepayers/waste-recycling/residential-soft-plastics-recycling-program
For more information about SPSA, including information about how soft plastics are recycled, visit https://spsa.au/