While today marks the start of the Australian Government's national plastic waste export ban, Bayside's recycling will continue as usual as our plastics are already recycled here at home.
From 1 July 2021, mixed plastics cannot be exported overseas for processing and must recycled on shore, right here in Australia.
Plastics sorted into a single resin or polymer type (a single plastics number you can often find inside a triangle stamped on containers) are not covered by the ban.
The good news is that Bayside recycling from your blue bin is already processed here onshore.
Bayside's trucks collect your recyclables and head to the sorting facility of our recycling contractor, Visy Recycling, in Springvale. This facility is called a Material Recovery Facility (MRF).
At the MRF the recyclables are sorted into different recycling categories; paper, cardboard, plastic, steel, aluminium and glass.
The plastics are then transformed into flakes, washed and sorted by colour by a hard plastics processor. The flakes are then sold to plastic manufacturers to become new products, like bottles and containers. The majority of materials received by Visy are used in the re-manufacture of sustainable packaging within Visy's own operations.
