Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for North Sydney for her question. I know that she and her constituents are passionately committed to increasing recycling rates, as we all are. It was very bad news yesterday when we heard that REDcycle, which was established in around 2011, has actually closed its doors. REDcycle has collected about 5.4 billion pieces of soft plastic in the time that it has been operating. Of course, if REDcycle hadn't collected that soft plastic, it would have ended up in landfill. We know that families are very keen to do their bit for recycling. I'm sure most of us do this—we collect our soft plastics, take them back down to the supermarket next time we're going to the supermarket and see them go into the REDcycle bin. And we know that when that plastic is collected by REDcycle, it's actually quite a valuable commodity. It goes into making Coles supermarket trolleys, it goes into footpaths and garden edging and a whole range of very useful products.

I was very disappointed, as the member for North Sydney was, to hear that REDcycle has closed its doors, and I have spoken to Coles and Woolworths today, and the Food and Grocery Council, to see what we'll do in the immediate future period and then in the longer term. Immediately, we see absolutely tons of soft plastics that have been stockpiled. We have to deal with that stockpile first. Longer term, we have to invest in the infrastructure that will recycle this plastic. This government are already playing a role. With environment ministers around the country, we've upped our ambition. We've given $1 million to the Australian Food and Grocery Council to work with industry to develop more sustainable uses for these plastics. We've set aside $60 million for hard-to-recycle plastics specifically. We're working across Australia to phase out single-use plastics—bags, plates, cups, stirrers, plastic cutlery—

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