Recycling soft plastic is notoriously tricky, but these companies are looking for answers

The collapse of REDcycle, Australia’s largest plastic bag recycling program, has sparked concern over what can be done to stop soft plastic from going to landfill.

The supermarket drop-off bins were one of the few options available to consumers who wanted to recycle the plastic food wrappers, bubble wrap and cling film that tends to dominate the products we buy.

Soft plastic is frequently contaminated with food and often made from different types of material, so it’s difficult to recycle and new uses are limited.

While it was being turned into things such as concrete, asphalt, street furniture, bollards and shopping trolleys, the dream of recycling is for products to find a new life again and again.

So is there an answer for preventing soft plastic from ending up in the bin? While reducing plastic use is the most effective answer, several projects are trying to deal with the legacy problem in Victoria.

One of them is a proposed recycling facility at the former Dow Chemical factory in Altona, which aims to turn soft plastic back into food-safe wrappers by liquifying it into the oil it was made from.