Yellow-lidded recycling bins are no place for soft plastics

The REDcycle program had previously provided consumers with a collection point at supermarkets for soft plastics, including shopping bags, frozen food packaging, pet food bags and various other soft plastic packaging.

Residents are being asked to do their best to minimise soft plastic consumption until the issue can be resolved.

As a region, our soft plastic annual consumption is approximately 900 million items per year, or an average of 19 pieces of soft plastic consumption per person, per day.

Mayor Greg Williamson said with no suitable collection point, soft plastics must be disposed of in general waste bins, so either red-lidded or green-lidded kerbside collection bins.

“What we really don’t want to see is soft plastics ending up in residents’ recycling bins and then at our Materials Recovery Facility (MRF),” Mayor Williamson said.

“Soft plastics can not be recycled at the MRF and, if they end up here, they pose a significant safety risk to our staff and can also damage equipment,” he said.

Council’s MRF facility recycles household packaging, such as glass bottles and jars, milk and juice cartons, paper and cardboard, aluminium cans and foil, steel cans and aerosols and plastics numbered 1-6.

Mayor Williamson said all other non-recyclable items must be manually separated by staff and are sent to landfill, which is costly for ratepayers.

To support the community in making educated recycling decisions, council has developed an easy-to-follow “What goes where” poster.

Schools and body corporates are welcome to order these free of charge to place on their premises to help improve correct recycling rates. Visit mackay.qld.gov.au/recycleright to order one today.