Nestlé has launched a trial project in Australia that seeks to effectively collect, sort, and process soft plastics for recycling.
The company has teamed up with recycling company iQ Renew for the pilot, which will involve the collection of plastics from more than 100,000 households.
Soft plastics constitute 20% of the volume of household garbage and are also frequently found in incorrect recycling bins, iQ Renew chief executive, Danial Gallagher, pointed out.
'Recycling Stream'
"We’ve designed the trial so that at the front end, it will support householders to pre-sort their soft plastic and get it into a recycling stream, while behind the scenes, we’ll test using the sorted soft plastic as a resource in a range of different manufacturing processes," Gallagher added.
Initially, the project will commence with 2,000 households in Australia and will be extended to more homes later in the year.
The trial expects to divert around 750 tonnes of soft plastic from ending up in the landfill, Nestlé said.
'Greater Focus' On Soft Plastics
Nestlé Australia CEO, Sandra Martinez, commented, "While we are working to make all our packaging recyclable, we know that soft plastics is an area that needs greater focus and collaboration.
"We need to find ways to drive more recycling here. Given the low amount of soft plastic collected from consumers today, we hope this trial can unlock the significant potential for soft plastic packaging to become a resource."
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
