Consumers have options for their soft plastics including:
- Disposing of them in landfill bins. If this is your choice, please compact them into a large bag so they take up less space
- Stockpile them until the industry determines another option or Redcycle returns. Please stockpile using the above method.
To lessen your impact, consider the products you are purchasing that use soft plastic waste, and cut down on items packaged in this manner. The more people do this the more the supermarkets will look to providing options for sustainably packaged items where the packaging is minimised or able to composted (such as cardboard packaging). Select a few products each week to source without packaging, and slowly develop other sources and choices.
Some ideas:
- Avoid buying plastic ziplock bags – wash and reuse existing bags
- Use waxed fabric instead of clingfilm
- Take your own veggie bags to the supermarket/grocer or buy loose
- Buy canned dog or cat food and not the pouches
- Buy your household non-perishables from bulk stores.
REDcycle suspends operations as of 9 November 2022
REDcycle regrettably has temporarily paused its soft plastics collection program. REDcycle has a 'Frequently Asked Questions' section on its website to answer questions about the program and suspension of collections.
The Western Metropolitan Regional Council (WMRC) says that due to the material’s lightweight composition, soft plastics cannot be recycled through our recycling bins as the Materials Recovery Facilities' optical sorting cannot distinguish between soft plastics and paper, contaminating the paper stream.
For now, we recommend that residents pause separating soft plastics and put them in their general waste bin instead. Recycle Right will be updated as soon as possible to reflect these changes and recommendations.
More information is available via the Redcycle website.
The Town of Cambridge and WMRC run a variety of bulk food workshops to assist residents avoid single-use plastics.
Check our What's On pages for Town workshops, and the WMRC Events page for details.
WMRC is running a bulk food workshop at the Clean Pantry in Mosman Park on 3 December 2022. This workshop will give you a crash course in bulk food shopping and ways that you can use bulk food stores in your favor at home. Visit their event page for more details.
Join a Movement
Turn ‘Plastic Free July’ into ‘Plastic Free Year-Round’ as a way of reducing your plastic use.
Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities. Plastic Free July is all about choosing to refuse single-use plastics.
See what you can do
Are you ready to take the challenge?
Sign up now and commit to refusing single use plastic for the month of July, and the future.
Take the challenge
Email waste@cambridge.wa.gov.au with any queries.