The Government's failure to mandate Australia's recycling targets is to blame for any recyclable soft plastic items sent to landfill as a result of REDcycle's collapse.
Greens spokesperson for waste and recycling, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said:
"It's unacceptable that once big packaging corporations whack a recycling label on packaging, the Government thinks it can wipe its hands clean of responsibility.
"The Government can't keep passing the buck on recycling. Minister Plibersek today said it shouldn't be beyond big companies like Coles and Woolworths to come up with a viable solution to soft plastic recycling.
"I'm disappointed with Minister Plibersek's comments. The attitude and culture of governments leaving this problem to big business to sort out is why we're in this mess. Big businesses have no incentive to fix the problem, they're only interested in their bottom line.
"Australia's recycling industry has been crying out for the Government to introduce mandatory national packaging targets in order to have the confidence to invest in the infrastructure and technology necessary to recycle things like soft plastics right across the country.
"An export ban on sending plastics overseas for recycling should've provided a welcome boost for Australia's recycling industry but successive governments have failed to take the most basic of steps to make us self-sufficient waste and recycling managers. If recycled content in packaging and government procurement of recycled content were mandated, we wouldn't be in this mess.
"Every day the Government fails to take meaningful action on recycling is another day our environment suffers and another day that Australians miss out on thousands of job opportunities that could be created in a true circular economy."
