Day 40 of 365 Days Of Low Carbon Living – dealing with all those soft plastic bags and wrappings.
Today was a gorgeous early autumn day, the perfect day for a walk.
So I walked to my nearest ‘big’ shops to do one thing: put my modest collection of soft plastics into the special recycling bin there.Why recycle soft plastic
I have been recycling paper and cardboard, metals and hard plastics (those that keep their shape) for years.
Yet there was always the problem of soft plastics – the plastic films and wrappings that you can scrunch up and so can’t put into standard, ‘yellow-top’ recycling bins for hard plastics. (That’s mainly because soft plastics jam up the sorting machines at materials recovery facilities.)
So, for a long time, almost the only things that went into my ‘rubbish’ bin were the soft plastics that are such a big part of our world these days.
We can do a lot to reduce the problem, by not using things like cling wrap, plastic produce bags and plastic shopping bags.
Yet there are some things that only come in plastic wrapping these days – hence the contents of my rubbish bin.
I felt terrible. All that pollution and waste of resources – for something that could (in most cases) only be used once, and then had to be thrown away, where it creates a raft of problems.
Then a great innovation: thanks to the REDcycle Program, we now have a pretty easy way to keep our plastic bags and soft plastic packaging out of landfill and instead turn them into new products like low maintenance outdoor equipment and furnishings. (In a nice turn of events, it turns out that Replas, the company that makes the new products out of the soft plastics, talked to me about their idea when they were just starting and I was doing very different work.)
Yes, these new products are still plastic – but at least they last a long time. Using plastic for these products mean less use of toxic substances like wood preservatives. And using pre-used plastic as a raw material means that they are not made from the usual raw materials of fossil oil and gas. Both fossil oil and gas are pollutants in their own right, and fossil gas is also a powerful and quick-acting cause of damage to our climate. This means that recycling soft plastics means less demand for fossil oil and gas for the products into which they are made. And so our carbon footprint is lowered (just a little).
How to recycle soft plastic
Collect your soft plastics. Make sure they are dry and as clean as possible. I put mine in a soft plastic bag that is part of the collection. Also make sure you keep your collection somewhere handy so it is just as easy as putting your plastics in the bin. (Making it easier than using the bin is even better.) I keep the collection near my shopping bags, near my kitchen. My sister keeps hers in the bottom of her pantry, and my father keeps his in his kitchen broom cupboard.
There are few soft plastics that cannot (yet) be recycled. Plastic ‘cellophane’ from bunches of flowers is one that surprised me. Soft plastics that are silver in colour can be tricky – some are OK but others are mainly foil – so it’s worth checking the list of soft plastics that can be recycled.
Take your collection to any participating supermarket – usually the major chains in major cities and towns in Australia and New Zealand. Then put the plastic in the REDcycle bin there.
Check out the excellent list of Frequently Asked Questions on the REDcycle website for further details.
NOTE: This post may seem like an affiliate plug for REDcycle. It’s not. I am simply grateful that here in Australia (and in New Zealand) we finally can keep most soft plastics out of landfill and make use of their materials…at least until we no longer have soft plastics (will that ever happen?).
The challenge
Collect any soft plastics and take them for recycling (even if it means saving them for a trip to a place with a collection point).
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