Soft plastic recycling has made a big return to a major Australian supermarket, more than three years after the disastrous collapse of the nationwide REDcycle program.

REDcycle went bust in November 2022, with thousands of tonnes of soft plastic discovered stashed in warehouses across Victoria, NSW and South Australia soon after.

The company had been backed by supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths, who had paid it $20 million over a decade but were not told about the stockpiling. REDcycle had apparently recycled just 5 per cent of the plastics it collected

Months later, a NSW court ordered the company be wound up and Australia has since been without a mass recycling program for products such as food wrappers, chip packets and bread bags.

Until earlier this week, when Woolworths announced it was returning dedicated bins to collection soft plastics to more than 700 stores across five states.

It follows a trial program coordinated by the Soft Plastics Taskforce. and run in some Coles and Woolies stores since February 2024. Woolworths said this week hundreds more locations had added collection points since the trial began, with more of its supermarkets in South Australia joining the scheme this week.

“Our customers have continued to advocate for soft plastic recycling and we’re thrilled to be able to give them the ability to recycle these materials again,” Woolworths 360 managing director Rob McCartney said.

About 40 million pieces of soft plastic, or 310,000 kilograms, have so far been collected and processed as part of the renewed recycling program.

Some of it gets a second life in Woolworths stores by being converted into products such as wall panelling and own-brand bread bags, which are made with 30 per cent recycled plastic.

Woolworths partners with Australian-based recycling companies saveBOARD, iQRenew, and Plascrete to deliver the renewed soft plastics recycling program.

“We are proud to partner with innovative recyclers such as iQRenew which has opened a new facility in NSW that has the capacity to process 14,000 tonnes per year of soft plastics. While saveBOARD is transforming soft plastic waste into building materials that we are already using in 170 stores,” McCartney said.

“With this renewed scheme, we’re working closely with Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia to lead the industry on soft plastics recycling.”

This week’s announcement appeared to be a winner with shoppers.

“Hooray,” wrote one Facebook user on a post from South Australia’s City of Tea Tree Gully that outlined its six participating Woolies stores.

“Excellent news,” wrote another.

Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia chief executive officer Barry Cosier said the expanded Woolies scheme was “just the start”.

“This industry-led initiative has ensured that supermarket in-store collections currently provide convenient access to soft plastics recycling for almost 70 per cent of Australians,” he said.

“As more brands and retailers join SPSA, we can increase collections in more stores, in more retailers and in more locations, boosting participation rates far beyond current levels.”

Coles and Aldi are also due to expand their programs, all of which are run through the Soft Plastics Taskforce.

See a full list of the Woolworths supermarkets involved in the scheme here.