Woolworths Restarts Woolworths Soft Plastic Recycling in 700 Stores

Woolworths has brought back woolworths soft plastic recycling across 700 stores in five states, including selected stores in South Australia this week. The rollout gives shoppers a recycling option again after the service was reduced to a small trial in February 2024.

Rob McCartney, Woolworths 360 managing director, said: "We’re thrilled" "to be able to give shoppers the ability “to recycle these materials again”". Woolworths said customers had already recycled an estimated 40 million pieces of soft plastic since the trial began, equal to roughly 310,000 kilograms.

Rob McCartney and Woolworths

McCartney said: "Our customers have continued to advocate for soft plastic recycling". He also said: "We are proud to partner with innovative recyclers such as iQRenew". The company said the revived program now extends well beyond the five Victorian stores that took part in the February 2024 trial.

iQRenew and saveBOARD

Woolworths said iQRenew has opened a new NSW facility with the capacity to process 14,000 tonnes a year of soft plastics. It said saveBOARD is turning soft plastic waste into building materials already used in 170 stores. Some collected plastics are also going into store materials, including wall panelling, and into packaging products such as home-brand bread bags with 30 per cent recycled content.

Soft plastics can be recycled only once or twice before their quality deteriorates, and Woolworths said the broader effort runs through Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia with major brands including Mars, Nestlé and McCormick Foods. For shoppers, the return means the collection points are back at scale, but the recycled material still depends on a processing chain that has to keep finding end uses inside stores and in packaging.