2025 Free Soft Plastics Drop Off Days Announced
Since the well attended and successful free Soft Plastics Drop Off days pilot were completed at the end of 2024 and early 2025, the question that has been most asked by people at events where Circular Plastics Illawarra members have been present is “When will the next Soft Plastics drop off days be occurring?”
Good news! Three new Soft Plastics Drop off days have been announced by Illawarra Shoalhaven Joint Organisation (ISJO) for three of the 4 Council LGAs covered by ISJO. These being Wollongong, Shellharbour and Kiama.
The dates for more drop-off events for soft plastics announced are: -
Sunday 14th September, 8am - 12pm @ Albion Oval Carpark, Ash Avenue Albion Park Rail
Saturday 25th October, 8am - 12pm @ Ray Robinson Field Carpark, Moray Rd, Towradgi
Saturday 8th November, 8am - 12pm @ Kiama waste and recycling depot, Riverside Dr, Minnamurra
In addition to the 3 drop off events by each of the councils, there is a 5 day a week (Four week days + 1 weekend day) drop off at Flagstaff Group’s Paper to Paper site at 262 Nolan Street, Unanderra. Days and times are: -
Monday - Thursday 4:15pm - 4:45pm
and
Saturdays 8am - 10:45am
No access outside these times. These times are to avoid interaction with heavy vehicular traffic at Flagstaff group office. Times will be strictly adhered to for safety reasons.
See ISJO’s Soft Plastics page for all dates, times, locations, as well as examples of types of soft plastic packaging that will be accepted. Use the ISJO page for the latest updates in case there are last minute changes.
Soft Plastics must be Clean, Empty and Dry.
After collection the plastics will be baled and sent to the IQ Renew soft plastics recycling facility, which is located near Taree, NSW. If you want to know more you can watch a video showing the recycling process here.
You can also see the range of products now being made from their recycled material at their link: https://iqrenew.com/soft-plastics-feedstock/
Also there is an article in the Illawarra Flame on the new soft plastics drop off events here. See Instagram post.
Background
These free Soft Plastics Drop Off days, as well as the proposed drop off at Flagstaff group have been made available through connections made by ISJO and Circular Plastics Illawarra (CPI) while working towards a circular economy for soft plastics in the Illawarra / Shoalhaven. CPI member Yvette Barrs, in her role as ISJO’s Director Environment, Waste & Sustainability has been championing Soft Plastic Recycling services with the 4 councils.
Following the evaluation of the original pilot at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025, ISJO prepared a business case for ongoing collections. Following this, additional funding was needed to cover the costs for soft plastics recycling collection. These costs include, collection, transport for aggregation, baling, transport of bales to processor for recycling, then processing by recycling facility.
In the interim, until permanent soft plastic recycling services are established and running in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven, Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia (SPSA) have come to the party to cover some of the costs for the drop-off events, including transport to the processor and processing costs by the recycler. This is for the three additional free Soft Plastics Drop of Days, as well as for the drop off at Flagstaff Group at Unanderra.
SPSA have funded these interim Soft Plastics collection services as part of their current and expanding Soft Plastics collection trial sites occurring across Australia, to extend the trial into our region, where no Soft Plastics recycling services previously existed.
To avoid the downfall causing the collapse of the previous REDcycle Soft Plastics collection and recycling program (See ABC article. See SBS Article), a national soft plastics recycling program is expected to be funded through a levy on companies that use soft plastics. This approach is called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
This is a stepping stone from the current linear one way supply chains of production to landfill waste, towards Circular Economies. In Circular Economies waste is designed out wherever possible and resources are recycled then used to substitute for virgin materials in the production process.
In moving towards an EPR scheme, SPSA have submitted an Application and received a Draft Determination, with Interim Authorisation to proceed with levy and co-operation for management of such by the competing supermarkets and product brands, from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The proposal and determination make interesting reading.