Packaging · Regulation

The REDcycle stockpile has been processed, and the deal that cleared it has expired

In July we said the interim authorisation covering the post-REDcycle stockpile ended on 31 July 2026, that the permanent scheme was still in planning, and that we would report what happened. Here it is, and it is better news than the timing suggested. The Soft Plastics Taskforce filed its final report on 22 July 2026: the legacy stockpile has been processed, the Taskforce held its last meeting on 28 May because the remediation plan was complete, and the in-store collection program transitioned to Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia in July. The authorisation expired on schedule because the job it existed for was finished.

Published 18 August 2026 · The Print Register · 5 sources

The pile of soft plastic that REDcycle left behind when it collapsed in 2022 has been the unfinished business of Australian packaging ever since. On the participants’ own account to the regulator, it is now finished.

What the final report says

Condition 2 of ACCC authorisation AA1000673 required Coles, Woolworths and ALDI to file progress reports with the regulator, published on its public register. The report dated 22 July 2026 is the last of them, and the participants say so in terms: The Participants note that this is the final Progress Report under the Authorisation.

The Taskforce met once in the reporting period, on 28 May 2026, and the report records that This meeting was the final meeting of the Taskforce as the remediation plan has been executed to completion.

On the stockpile itself: As at July 2026, the legacy stockpile material has been processed by third party facilities. The participants add that they acknowledge the significant and collective effort it has taken to process the legacy soft plastics stockpile. Material that has not yet been turned into end products is held by third-party facilities which, the report says, the participants understand intend to refine and transform it.

Woolworths, the report notes, is working to terminate agreements entered into in reliance on the Authorisation ahead of the Authorisation’s expiry on 31 July 2026. That is what an authorisation ending in an orderly way looks like.

The in-store pilot at handover, and it is lopsided

The same report gives the size of the in-store collection pilot at the point it changed hands: 737 stores across the three retailers. The split is worth looking at.

In-store soft plastics collection points at handover, from the 22 July 2026 progress report
Retailer	NSW	Vic	Qld	ACT	SA	Total
Woolworths	286	209	148	23	47	713
ALDI	17	2	0	0	0	19
Coles	0	5	0	0	0	5
Total	303	216	148	23	47	737

Figures as tabled in the progress report. The totals row is our addition and each column sums to the report’s own figures. On those numbers Woolworths operates about 97 per cent of the collection points and Coles about 0.7 per cent, which is our arithmetic.

The report carries Coles’ own explanation, and it is fair to give it in full: Coles intends to expand the presence of in-store collection once the nascent Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia scheme has stabilised and there is consistent handling, management and processing of material flows in a maturing program.

Volume, and a sharp recent rise

Approximately 418 tonnes of soft plastics were collected at participating stores in the 2025-26 financial year, the report says. Customer engagement “has remained strong”, and between April and June 2026 the tonnage collected from participating stores increased by 36 per cent, which the participants attribute in part to Woolworths customer activations and media coverage including Channel 9 news in May 2026.

Set 418 tonnes a year against the scale of the problem and it is modest, which is the honest way to read it. It is also a pilot that grew by more than a third in a single quarter immediately before being handed to a national scheme.

What now runs, and what it costs your customers

The report states plainly that The operation of the in-store collection program was transitioned to SPSA in July 2026. Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia holds ACCC authorisation AA1000695-1, granted with conditions on 12 November 2025 and running to 4 December 2033.

On its own account SPSA is now operating rather than planning. It says its kerbside and supermarket in-store collections provide convenient access to soft plastics recycling for around 70% of Australians, that there are now over 700 collection points across Australia, in five States and Territories, and that its members include over 40 brands and retailers, and the cost impact is less than 1c per average food and grocery product.

That last figure is the one this trade should note. SPSA is funded by levies on brand owners and retailers, which means the businesses that put soft plastic packaging on the market pay for it, and the scheme’s own estimate of the pass-through is under a cent per product. It is SPSA’s number rather than an independent one, but the levy method and SPSA’s own estimates are on the public record, in an ACCC document we had not read.

The ACCC’s final determination on the scheme, dated 12 November 2025, sets out how the levy is to work, on SPSA’s own submissions. The SPSA board is to set a Scheme Levy each year by dividing the total anticipated Scheme costs for the relevant year by the total tonnes of soft plastic packaging placed on the market by Scheme Participants in the preceding calendar year. It is paid by manufacturers or first suppliers; retailers pay only on their own brand products. SPSA proposed an initial levy of $160 per tonne of soft plastic packaging placed on the market, and a Minimum Levy of $1,600 a year for participants placing 10 tonnes or less.

Two things in that record matter to anyone pricing flexible packaging. The levy is projected to rise: SPSA’s chart, reproduced in the determination, runs from $160 a tonne in 2024-25 and 2025-26 to $200 in 2026-27, $240 to $270 in 2027-28 and $380 to $420 in 2028-29. And SPSA’s under-a-cent figure matches only the lightest band at the lowest rate. At $160 a tonne its table estimates 1 cent or less for an item in up to 90 grams of packaging, and 1 to 3 cents for 90 to 180 grams, such as an 18 kg bag of dry dog food. At $420 a tonne the same items come to up to 4 cents and 4 to 8 cents. Those are SPSA’s estimates, and each participant decides whether to pass the levy on. We have not found a published levy rate for 2026-27 on SPSA’s site or the ACCC register, so we cannot say whether the board has set the $200 its projection shows.

Correcting ourselves

Our 21 July piece said the permanent scheme was still in its planning phase, out for a Request for Information rather than collecting anything. That was accurate on the record available then and it is no longer true. The transition happened in July, and SPSA now describes an operating national scheme. We have added a dated update to that story pointing here.

Our reading

Offered as opinion on the sourced facts above. The temptation in July was to read a deadline arriving before a successor was ready as a gap, and we were careful then to say we did not know. Reading the final report, the sequence looks deliberate rather than lucky: the remediation plan finished, the Taskforce wound itself up in May, operations moved across in July, and the authorisation lapsed at the end of the month with agreements being terminated ahead of it.

What is genuinely unfinished is the shape of the thing that replaced it. A national scheme inherits a pilot in which one retailer runs 97 per cent of the collection points, and Coles has said on the record it is waiting for the scheme to stabilise before expanding. The number to watch is not the stockpile any more. It is whether 737 collection points and 418 tonnes a year become something proportionate to what the industry puts on the market, and whether the levy follows SPSA’s own projection from $160 a tonne towards $400.

Sources

How we put this together. AI systems researched and wrote it under our standing editorial rules, taking its facts from the primary sources below. 2 quotes were matched by software, word for word, against saved copies of the sources. How The Print Register works.

Soft Plastics Taskforce participants (Coles Group, Woolworths Group, ALDI Stores), Authorisation AA1000673, Condition 2 Progress Report, 22 July 2026 (public version, PDF, read 18 August 2026): that this is the final progress report; the 28 May 2026 final Taskforce meeting and that the remediation plan has been executed to completion; that as at July 2026 the legacy stockpile material has been processed by third party facilities and where the processed material now sits; Woolworths terminating agreements ahead of the 31 July 2026 expiry; the 737-store table by retailer and state; Coles’ stated reason for waiting to expand; approximately 418 tonnes collected in 2025-26; the 36 per cent increase between April and June 2026 and its attribution; and that operation of the in-store collection program was transitioned to SPSA in July 2026.
ACCC, Coles Group on behalf of itself and participating supermarkets (authorisations register, AA1000673, read 18 August 2026): the register status of completed, the grant with conditions on 27 February 2025, the 31 July 2026 expiry, and that the 22 July 2026 progress report is the most recent document on the register with no later extension, revocation or substitution recorded.
ACCC, ACCC authorises major supermarkets to continue cooperation on soft plastics recycling (media release, 27 February 2025, read 18 August 2026): the decision granting Coles, Woolworths and ALDI authorisation to continue recycling the stockpile and running the in-store pilot until 31 July 2026, and the quarterly reporting condition.
Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia, spsa.au (read 18 August 2026): that kerbside and in-store collections now provide access for around 70 per cent of Australians, that there are over 700 collection points in five states and territories, that members include over 40 brands and retailers, the stated cost impact of less than 1c per average food and grocery product, and the eight-year ACCC authorisation funded by levies from brand owners and retailers.
ACCC, Final Determination, Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia Limited, AA1000695 (12 November 2025, PDF, read 19 October 2026), paragraphs 1.22 to 1.29 and figures 2 and 3: how the Scheme Levy is calculated and who pays it, the proposed initial levy of $160 per tonne, the $1,600 Minimum Levy, SPSA’s projected levy to 2028-29, and SPSA’s estimates of the levy per item at $160 and $420 per tonne.

Methodology. The account of what happened is taken from the participants’ own final report to the ACCC, downloaded from the public register and read in full, and every quoted phrase is verbatim from the source attributed to it. The report is a public version, so some commercial detail is redacted in the original. The percentages of collection points by retailer and the totals row in the table are our arithmetic on the report’s figures. SPSA’s coverage, collection-point and cost claims are the scheme’s own statements about itself and are attributed as such; the levy method, rates and per-item estimates we give are SPSA’s proposals as recorded in the ACCC’s final determination, not rates we have seen set for 2026-27, and we do not treat the under-1c figure as independently established. We checked the ACCC register for any extension, revocation or substitution of AA1000673 after 31 July 2026 and found none, which is a statement about the register on 18 August 2026 rather than proof that nothing exists. We did not contact the ACCC, the supermarkets or SPSA. The final two sections are our opinion, offered as such and grounded in the stated facts.

Updated 19 October 2026. We wrote that the under-a-cent cost figure was SPSA’s number and that we have not seen the fee schedule that produces it. How the levy is calculated, SPSA’s proposed starting rate, its projected rates and its per-item estimates were all in the ACCC’s final determination of 12 November 2025, which we had not read. We have added two paragraphs on them (see how the levy works), rewrote that sentence, revised the last sentence of our reading and the methodology note, and added a source. We have not found a published levy rate for 2026-27.

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