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"On average, Australians use 130 kg of plastic per person each year. It's estimated only 9% of that is recycled. More frightening still, up to 130,000 tonnes of plastic will find its way into our waterways and into the ocean."
The unavoidable truth behind meal kits has always been the damage that the packaging can cause due to the method of pre-portioning. At Dinner Twist, we have made a pledge to be as transparent as possible, which is why this is something we openly agree with. While our methods certainly help the planet in a variety of ways; including reducing the overall household food waste of customers, switching countless families over to regeneratively farmed beef and lamb or reducing the number of cars on the road commuting to and from the grocery store, we also know we’re not perfect when it comes to sustainability, particularly our packaging {although we’re working hard on it… REALLY hard!}
What might still come as a surprise to some is that soft, scrunchable plastics like plastic bags, wrappers and glad wrap can’t go into your regular home recycling bin {and ideally not your general waste bin either!}
In a perfect world, we would take these soft plastics back from you each week. We feel it’s important to give you a rundown on the issue that businesses, like Dinner Twist, are currently facing; our access to soft plastic recycling has been taken away. To put it simply, if we could, we would but there is no option. We have reached out to a variety of different companies to try and recycle our soft plastics with no success. We honestly mean it when we say that we have discussed and considered every option - even collecting them from our customers and then taking them to a local supermarket ourselves. Businesses and schools are highly discouraged from taking large volumes of soft plastics to the supermarket recycling stations, as this “could result in the system being overwhelmed and therefore the whole programme could be jeopardised.” - www.redcycle.net.au/faqs/
If we were to ignore the obvious and take these soft plastics back from our customers, we would be hiding the truth, that there is no other option than to put them back into landfill. To any business of our size suggesting they go about this process differently, we would love for you to reach out and let us know how! We’ve done our research on this and we’ve exhausted every avenue.
It’s an incredibly frustrating and disheartening situation. We believe the Australian Government should be supporting businesses and taking responsibility for the lifecycle of soft plastics. We want to know what their plan is. We will do our very best to continue the search for a resolution to this problem, however in the meantime, we have to pass that responsibility over to you. It comes down to us all as consumers to do our part and there is a simple method any household can adopt:
1. Collect:
Collect all the soft plastics that you can’t recycle at home. You don't need to buy a special new bin - just throw them all in a bag.
2. Drop:
Drop your soft plastics into your nearest REDcycle collection bin - there are participating supermarkets around Australia. Find the REDcycle drop off point nearest to you. REDcycle bins are typically located near the checkout. There are currently a few different types of REDcycle bins in use depending on the store so please ask at the customer service desk if you can’t locate the bin.
3. Recycle:
The collected plastic is brought to the REDcycle facility for initial processing, then it is delivered to Australian manufacturing partners.
So, where do we go from here? If we can’t recycle them, our focus has to turn to eliminating them. You may have noticed a few updates across our social media pages regarding the switches we have made so far, including changing our rice container lids from plastic to BioPak BioBowl Paper lids and ditching the plastic bags to swap over to compostable produce bags. Click HERE to read more on this!
Our soft plastics team are checking in regularly to chip away at our single-use plastics within Dinner Twist. Our goal? “To continually challenge ourselves on the utilisation of single-use plastics, not only in food packaging but all areas within the Dinner Twist business! We hope our actions will inspire others in the food sector to make better choices and commit to long term solutions that our planet requires.”
- Melissa Vajda, General Manager
(Image: Dinner Twist Soft Plastics Team with Melissa, General Manager)
