The ACCC has authorised the supermarket-backed Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia scheme
to run a national soft-plastics recycling scheme for eight years, funded by a levy on the
businesses that put soft plastic packaging on the market. As the separate interim stockpile
authorisation expires on 31 July, the permanent scheme is still in planning, out for a
Request for Information.
The government's Design for Kerbside Recyclability Grading Framework gives every
pack a single grade from A to G across rigid plastics, flexible plastics, fibre,
metal and glass, and it scores the things a printer controls: material, inks,
adhesives and labels. In stakeholder engagement through 2026, no decision yet on
whether it becomes regulation.
The covenant body loses chief executive Chris Foley at the end of November,
inside the busiest packaging-reform window in years. The board says its strategy
and its positions before government are unchanged; the continuity plan is the
useful part for anyone who supplies or converts packaging.
The Senate committee examining the No Time to Waste EPR bill reports on
6 August. The government's own consultation shows 65 per cent of respondents
back mandatory EPR, and APCO, which runs the voluntary covenant, now
advocates mandatory settings too.
Why the same job is $180 at one shop and $600 at another: the fixed-cost
anatomy of a quote, the industry cost data, and what cheap online printing
trades away.
The ABS numbers behind the unboxing trend, what the APCO data says about
fibre packaging, and the recyclability and labelling rules a small brand
inherits with its first box.
