A single letter, from A to G
In December 2024 the environment department (DCCEEW) published the Design for Kerbside Recyclability Grading Framework, the key recommendation of an independent National Packaging Design Standard Working Group it had convened. The idea is simple to state and consequential to live with: assign every piece of consumer packaging a single recyclability grade, from A at the top to G at the bottom, and set that grade against the reality of how packaging is actually collected, sorted, recycled and reprocessed in Australia, and whether there is a real market for the recovered material at the end of it.
Grades are worked out separately for each of five material families, so a pack
is judged against its own kind rather than against a different material. The
framework is explicit that it does not compare the relative merits between
materials or recommend preferred materials
; an A-grade carton and an A-grade
glass jar are each best-in-class for their own stream.
What actually earns an A, and what caps it
Grade A is a high bar deliberately. In the framework's own words, A-grade
packaging is collected from kerbside commingled recycling systems, and container deposit
schemes and is readily accepted by most MRFs and recyclers. The recovered packaging
has a market value and there is a viable and scaled market for the recycled
materials
. The grading rewards higher-value end markets: formats
that cost recyclers less to recover and reprocess, and so turn a profit, attract
the higher grades. Recyclability on paper is not enough; the material has to have
somewhere real to go.
For plastics there is a hard ceiling most brand owners will not expect: only
food products packaged in food-grade polymers can reach Grade A. The framework's
reasoning is that food-grade recovered plastic has the highest end-market value and
the most consistent composition for use as recycled content in new manufacturing.
Non-food-contact plastic packaging cannot get an A no matter how well designed,
though the framework urges those designers to aspire to make improvements to their
packaging to achieve the highest grade possible for their packaging format
.
Underneath each material grade sit sub-material thresholds, and this is where the
print and conversion decisions land. The framework grades sub-types on size, shape,
weight, inks, adhesives and secondary materials such as labels
. Those are not
abstractions to a converter: a carbon-black print that a near-infrared sorter cannot
see, an aggressive adhesive that contaminates a fibre stream, a full-wrap label that
changes what a bottle is optically sorted as, each is the kind of design feature that
moves a pack down the ladder. The banned-inputs shortlist in the broader reform,
carbon black, oxo-degradables and
PFAS, overlaps precisely with these.
A low grade is not always a design failure
The framework is careful on this, and printers pitching to nervous packaging
clients should be too. Not every characteristic that pulls a grade down signals poor
design. Many lower-graded features exist for core functional reasons such as product
protection or the extension of shelf life
, or are dictated by the product, medical
and pharmaceutical packaging, human-safety and hygiene requirements, anti-theft
features. A pack can be doing exactly what it should and still grade low because the
job demands it.
Equally, a low grade can reflect the country rather than the pack. The framework
notes that some flexible plastics designed to best practice could currently be
graded in a lower category due to a lack of recovery and reprocessing systems,
infrastructure, and end markets
, and that as at-scale collection develops those
same formats could move up. Grades can be updated through a transparent review
process
as capacity and markets change. That is the volatile edge for anyone
planning packaging years out: the grade is a snapshot of Australian infrastructure,
not a fixed property of the material.
How it connects to the label you already know
The working group did not invent a new definition of "recyclable" out of nothing. It aligned to the existing Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) program and the Sustainable Packaging Guidelines, which require that at least 80 per cent of the population in a geographic area has convenient access to a collection service for the packaging, and that at least 70 per cent of an item by weight can actually be recycled. The framework also points to the existing Packaging Recyclability Evaluation Portal (PREP) as one tool the government could use to run assessments, with the grading charts supplying the criteria at the back end. If your packaging already carries an ARL, the grading framework is the same territory made sharper and turned into a single comparable letter.
Where it sits, and why it matters now
This is a first iteration, aimed at consumer packaging through kerbside, which is
the bulk of what Australians put in the bin. The department's
reforming
packaging regulation page confirms the current status plainly: through 2026 it is
engaging with stakeholders to ensure it is accurate and fit-for-purpose
, and a
decision has not yet been made on whether the framework will be part of new
regulations
. The existing voluntary co-regulatory arrangement stays in place until
any new regulations begin.
So nothing here is compulsory today, and it is worth being precise about that. But the direction of the wider reform, from the department's own consultation to the mandatory-EPR bill before the Senate, all points toward eco-modulated fees that charge more for harder-to-recycle packaging, and a grade is exactly the kind of yardstick such a fee would read from. For a printer or converter, the practical move is not to wait for the regulation but to know, for the packaging you quote, roughly where each material and each design choice lands on this A-to-G scale, because the moment it is priced in, that letter stops being advice and starts being money. The compliance layer a small brand already inherits and the material-by-material recovery numbers are the two pieces to read alongside this one.