What are soft plastics?
Soft plastics are plastics that can be scrunched in your hand and bounce back to their original shape or flexible films such as bubble wrap or cling wrap.
Soft plastics cannot be recycled through the commingled kerbside recycling bin (yellow lid) as they can get stuck in the trucks and sorting machinery. Soft plastics can be recycled through specialist recycling services.
A recent audit of kerbside general waste bins (red or dark green lid bin) showed that up to 70% of the general waste was soft plastics. If a household wishes to reduce their household waste and recycle more, they can do so by collecting their soft plastics in a bag and dropping them at a resource recovery facility.
Accepted Items
Please ensure all plastics are completely dry and free of food and other products.
Plastic bags
- Plastic carry bags
- Bulk bags. Such as: rice bags
- Reusable shopping bags ‘green bags’ (polypropylene)
- Netting produce bags (metal clips removed)
- Pet food and stock feed bags. Such as: dry pet food bags, chaff/horse/chicken feed (plastic and woven polypropylene)
- Zip lock and snap lock bags
Plastic Films
- Bubble wrap
- Cling wrap
- Documents sleeves (white reinforcement strip removed)
- Large sheets of plastic furniture wrap
- Pallet wrap
- Plastic film from grocery items. Such as: toilet paper and disposable nappies.
- Shrink wrap
Other items
- Bread bag tags (collected separately in a clear plastic bag)
- Plastic bottle caps (collected separately in a clear plastic bag)
What items are not accepted?
Any soft plastic item that is not listed above.
At this stage some soft plastics for example silver lined chip, silage wrap and snack wrappers are not yet accepted. We hope to expand the service and add more items to the list soon.
Check out our waste A-Z guide on our website or the MRSC waste app for a comprehensive list of waste items or contact Customer Service on (03) 5422 0333 or mrsc@mrsc.vic.gov.au with your query.
What happens to the soft plastics?
The resource recovery facility soft plastic trial has been successfully collecting 100-150 cubic metres a month (or 4 tonnes a week).
We have encountered some contamination issues, particularly with small plastics.
Council is working with the current provider and testing additional waste education messaging to overcome the contamination issue.
Council is planning to be in a position by the end of the financial year to test the market for an ongoing service.