Soft Plastics Recycling in Australia: Your Real Options

Here is the quick answer: for most Australian households, soft plastics still cannot go in the kerbside recycling bin, but you are no longer completely stuck. Supermarket drop-off bins have been returning to Coles, Woolworths and Aldi stores through the Soft Plastics Taskforce, a small number of councils are running kerbside trials or drop-off points, and paid pickup services like RecycleSmart operate in some areas. If you have been holding onto bags of bags since REDcycle collapsed, this guide covers what is real right now, without the greenwash. And a note upfront, because we believe in honesty: soft plastics are not accepted by our own recycling program, BRAD, and we will explain exactly why and what BRAD can take instead.

What counts as a soft plastic?

The rule of thumb: if the plastic scrunches easily in your hand and stays scrunched, it is soft plastic. Think bread bags, pasta and rice bags, frozen vegetable bags, chip packets and snack wrappers, fresh produce bags, plastic shopping bags, clean cling wrap, bubble wrap, courier satchels (remove the labels), zip-lock bags (remove the stickers) and the film on top of punnets.

Rigid items like drink bottles, yoghurt tubs and takeaway containers are a different stream, and codes 1, 2 and 5 are the ones most councils accept kerbside. If you want a refresher on the numbers, our plastics breakdown guide covers what each code means.

What actually happened with REDcycle

REDcycle, the supermarket collection program many of us used faithfully, shut down abruptly in November 2022. It later emerged that collected soft plastics had been stockpiled in warehouses because there was not enough processing capacity to deal with them, the stockpiles became a fire hazard, and the operator eventually went into administration. According to industry estimates cited by Clean Up Australia, even at its peak the program collected less than five per cent of consumer soft plastics.

It was a genuinely disheartening moment for anyone who had been carefully scrunching bags into bags. But it also forced serious investment in soft plastic recycling infrastructure, and this time the focus is on building processing capacity before collection bins go out.

Can soft plastics go in your kerbside bin?

For most of the country, no. Soft plastics in the yellow bin tangle in sorting machinery and contaminate other materials, so unless your council explicitly says otherwise, they still belong in the red landfill bin.

The exceptions are trial areas. Clean Up Australia reports that the National Plastics Recycling Scheme, developed by the Australian Food and Grocery Council, has been piloting kerbside collection in six local government areas across Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, where residents put soft plastics into a dedicated bag that goes in the yellow bin. Separately, some New South Wales councils accept soft plastics through the Curby program. If you are not sure whether your area is included, check your council's website before assuming either way.

Supermarket drop-off is coming back

The Soft Plastics Taskforce, made up of Coles, Woolworths and Aldi, began reintroducing return-to-store collection from late 2023 as a bridge while permanent infrastructure is built. The rollout has been deliberately gradual, matched to how much plastic can actually be processed.

As of mid 2026 the coverage is genuinely meaningful: reporting from May 2026 put collection at more than 700 Woolworths stores nationwide, with pilots at over 500 locations across Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Newcastle before that. Collected plastic is being turned into things like building linings, cabinetry, benches, wall panelling and even food-grade packaging.

Availability still varies store by store, so look for the soft plastics collection bin at your local supermarket, or ask at the service desk. If your store does not have one yet, that is the capacity-first approach at work rather than a broken promise.

Other local options: councils and doorstep pickup

A handful of councils run their own soft plastic collections, usually as free drop-off bins at libraries or council offices. This shifts every year, so check your council's website. The City of Sydney, the City of Melbourne and several Sydney councils have been among the leaders.

RecycleSmart collects soft plastics, along with e-waste and clothing, from your doorstep. You book a pickup online, leave your bag out on the scheduled day, and they take it to their recycling partners. The service works with participating councils and availability and pricing vary by area, so pop your address into their website to see whether they cover you.

The longer-term fix: Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia

In August 2025 the ACCC proposed to authorise a new industry-led scheme run by Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia (SPSA), with interim authorisation granted so it could start work immediately. Initial participants include Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, Nestle, Mars and McCormick Foods, and the scheme is funded by a levy on the soft plastic packaging that participants put on the market.

The plan is for SPSA to take over and expand the existing in-store collections and kerbside programs. In plain English: the supermarket bins you are seeing now are the bridge, and SPSA is intended to be the permanent structure behind them.

Prep tips: three minutes that make all the difference

Whichever collection point you use, make sure every soft plastic is:

• Clean, with no food residue
• Dry
• Free of stickers and labels where possible
• Separated from hard plastics

One dirty bread bag can contaminate a whole bale. A few other things not to do: do not stockpile soft plastics indefinitely hoping a perfect program will appear, because the options above exist now, and do not put compostable bags in your backyard compost unless they are certified home compostable, because commercial compostable plastics need industrial composting.

The honest bit: reduction beats recycling

Even with the new scheme, recycling soft plastic is the last resort, not the goal. Clean Up Australia's advice is to put refusing and reducing ahead of recycling, and we agree. Reusable produce bags, buying loose fruit and veg, choosing the cardboard-boxed option and refilling pantry staples all shrink the pile of scrunchy plastic before it exists. Recycle what you cannot avoid, but do not let the bin do all the work.

Where BRAD fits in

A transparency note, because we get asked this a lot: soft plastics are not on the accepted items list for BRAD, the Banish Recycling and Diversion program. Soft plastics need the dedicated, high-volume streams above, and we would rather point you to them than pretend otherwise.

But here is the thing about the kitchen and pantry that all those bread bags come from: it is also full of the hard-to-recycle items BRAD was built for. Bread tags, metal coffee pods, plastic lids, oral care waste, pens and more than 70 other items are all on the BRAD accepted list. So use the supermarket bin or a council option for your scrunchy plastics, and when you are ready to tackle the drawer of other awkward stuff, order a BRAD pre-paid label, fill the box with clean, dry items from the accepted list and drop it at any Australia Post location. Everything is sorted in Sydney and recycled onshore with specialist Australian recyclers.

Frequently asked questions

Can I put soft plastics in the yellow recycling bin?

Not unless your council is part of a specific soft plastics kerbside trial. For most Australians, soft plastics that cannot be dropped at a supermarket collection point still go in the red landfill bin, because they tangle in sorting equipment and contaminate the whole stream.

Is REDcycle coming back?

No. REDcycle shut down in November 2022 and the operator went into administration. Its replacement is the Soft Plastics Taskforce's return-to-store collection, which Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia is intended to take over and expand as a permanent scheme.

What do collected soft plastics become?

Recent reporting on the supermarket program lists building linings, cabinetry, benches, wall panelling and food-grade packaging among the end products.

Does BRAD accept soft plastics?

No. Soft plastics are not on the BRAD accepted items list. BRAD focuses on hard-to-recycle items like blister packs, toothpaste tubes, bread tags and metal coffee pods. The current list is on the BRAD program page.

Related reading

• How to recycle plastic bread tags in Australia
• How to recycle coffee pods in Australia
• The plastics breakdown: what you can and can't recycle

Keep in the loop

The soft plastics story is changing month by month as the supermarket rollout grows and the new scheme takes shape, and we update this guide as it does. For updates, new recycling guides and practical low-waste tips, sign up to the Banish newsletter at the bottom of this page.