Ethically Kate: Here’s what happens when you recycle soft plastics

Most things in the supermarket are covered in a material that we don’t need. Photo / Getty

Recycling different types of plastics correctly is an important part of being a “Tidy Kiwi”, but as Kate Hall explains, there are better ways to do your bit for the environment.

When you stuff your soft plastics into those clear round bins before your supermarket shop, your waste will end up being recycled into one of three things.

Firstly, it may be blended with HDPE milk bottle plastic, turned into fence posts, and used on farms.

Secondly, it could be made into construction boards that replace particle board and plasterboards.

Lastly, your soft plastics may be melted down into garden edging and cable covers.

While all of these options sound like great solutions at a surface level, I personally don’t recycle my soft plastics and I hope there will never come a time when we can recycle our soft plastics with our household recycling.

Let me elaborate.

A few years ago, we had a bin labelled “soft plastics” that sat beside our rubbish and recycling bins.

Like you, I would clean the soft plastics thoroughly, hang them out to dry, place them in the allocated bin, and take the contents with me when I waltzed to the supermarket. But after a regular pantry audit (I complete these routinely to make sure I am always working to reduce my waste), I realised that my soft plastics bin was encouraging me to produce more waste.

When I did my grocery shopping, I was more likely to grab an item covered in soft plastic because I knew my bin at home would look after it. But this little bin made me feel good about buying rubbish and sneakily forget a core part of sustainable living: recycling is not the solution to our global waste crisis. Recycling is a temporary solution.

Food items with zero packaging are miles better than food bought in recyclable packaging.

Embracing this realisation while keeping track of global concerns towards items like plastic fence posts shedding microplastics and harming our soils, I removed my soft plastics bin.

Since this change, my recycling bin is emptier and my self-control at supermarkets has been tested many times as I walk past the snack aisle.

I do things like pick kilograms of strawberries from farms during summer and freeze them to avoid packaged berries, and even though my pantry is far from soft-plastic free, I continue to strategise how to avoid the stuff.

It’s hard, I know. Most things in the supermarket are covered in a material that we don’t need but are forced to purchase because we want the product inside.

No matter what you do with your soft plastics, I encourage everyone to think about their regular food purchases and how you could reduce just a few pieces of packaging from ending up in any type of bin.

If you do recycle your soft plastics, make sure they are clean and dry before dropping them off.