What APCO announced, and why
APCO’s notice, headed Update on the future of ANZPAC, carries no date.
The Internet Archive first captured it on 9 September 2026. It gives four reasons: a
decline in membership and a number of external challenges, including delays to the United
Nations Global Plastics Treaty, reduced regional funding opportunities and continuing
regulatory uncertainty in Australia
. Together, it says, they made the program in its
current structure increasingly difficult to sustain
.
On what comes next, the notice says APCO is actively exploring opportunities to transfer
the ANZPAC brand and foundational work to a suitable partner that can build on its legacy in
the region
, that APCO will provide product stewardship support through its Stewardship
team
, and that Further updates on the wind-down process will be provided during the
remainder of 2026.
It names no partner and no end date, and it does not say what happens to
the pact’s published guides and specifications.
The Australian “regulatory uncertainty” is the story this masthead has followed all year. On 8 September APCO said a new Commonwealth packaging scheme would not come this term, and on 18 September environment ministers routed reform back through the Covenant instead.
The last scorecard
ANZPAC set four regional targets for 2025. Its most recent impact report, version 1 dated
December 2024 and covering members’ 2023 data, said plainly: Only one of the four
regional targets (Target 3) is on track to be met by 2025.
The figures behind that line,
from the report’s own summary table:
| Target | Baseline | 2023 | 2025 goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Eliminate problematic and unnecessary plastic packaging | 9,194 t on market, 2,237 t eliminated (2021) | 4,844 t on market, 960 t eliminated | 0 t on market |
| 2. Plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable | 63% (2021) | 71% | 100% |
| 3. Plastic packaging collected and effectively recycled, region | 216,340 t (2020) | 278,380 t | +25% in each geography |
| 4. Average recycled content | 7.5% (2021) | 15% | 25% |
The recycled tonnage rose 29% between 2020 and 2023 (our check: 278,380 against 216,340 is 28.7%). The report says Target 3 was met in Australia and the Pacific Islands and was close in New Zealand. On the other three, the 2023 numbers sit well short: 71% designed for recovery against 100%, and 15% recycled content against 25%.
Scale matters when reading those numbers. Members reported placing 461,415 tonnes of plastic packaging on the region’s markets in 2023, against an estimated 1,575,900 tonnes in total, which the report calls around 30% of the total. The scorecard described the members, not the market.
Membership, by the pact’s own count
APCO’s notice cites falling membership but gives no figures. The impact report counts member reports: 59 in 2021, 46 in 2022 and 47 in 2023. In 2023 the pact had 52 members and 55 supporters, the supporters including the Australian, New Zealand and Tuvalu governments. Those are 2023 figures; we have found no published count for 2024, 2025 or 2026.
The report that did not appear
The pact’s member reporting page still asks members for reports on their 2024
plastic packaging, due 30 April 2025, and says These reports shape our annual impact
report
. As at 7 October 2026 the pact’s news timeline ends at a 6 May 2025 export
guide, and its newest impact report is the December 2024 edition on 2023 data. So, as at that date, the
2024 member reports had not been published in aggregate on the pact’s site, and there
was no scorecard for the 2025 target year. The same 2023 report said the targets were
being reviewed in 2024
; we have found no published result of that review.
What it means for a print or packaging business
Nothing you are obliged to do changes. ANZPAC sat alongside regulation,
not inside it; its own report described its work as voluntary initiatives by ANZPAC and its
Members
. The obligations are elsewhere, and APCO’s 8 September statement put them in
one line: Obligations under the NEPM continue to apply, and the Covenant remains the pathway
through which most Australian businesses meet them.
If your business was a member, APCO’s notice points questions to its stewardship team, and further updates are due before the end of 2026.
If you use the pact’s resources, save the ones you rely on now. The pact’s resources page carries, among others, a set of 12 Australian industry-agreed specifications for recycled polymer materials and its circular design principles for packaging. The notice’s plan is to transfer the brand and foundational work to a partner, and it does not say whether the documents stay where they are.
Our view. A voluntary pact covering about 30% of the region’s plastic packaging, with one target on track and member reports falling from 59 to 47, was never going to carry 2025 on its own; the 2023 report itself listed advocacy for EPR among its priorities. The loss is the measurement. With a Commonwealth scheme off the table this term and the Covenant now the route, the region’s member-reported plastics scorecard is ending with no published report on the year it was built to measure. For anyone making a recycled content or recyclability claim on a pack, the evidence base now sits with APCO’s own annual packaging data and with you.
What we check next
APCO’s promised updates on the wind-down, any named partner for the ANZPAC brand, and whether the 2024 member data is ever published.