RED Group

Thanks to legislative efforts around the country to reduce or ban plastic bags, most Australian households are now aware of the benefits of taking their own bags with them when they shop.

Over the past five or six years, we've seen an enormous shift towards consumers saying no to single-use shopping bags, choosing instead to purchase and reuse supermarket polypropylene shopping bags. That's a huge step in the right direction.

But Elizabeth Kassell, sustainability champion and Director of RED Group Holdings Pty Ltd, believes that reducing customers' reliance on single-use bags is only the first stage in working towards an environmentally-sustainable future.

"It's a great start," she says, "but we don't believe you solve one problem by creating another. Each supermarket polypropylene bag replaces four plastic bags every time it is used, but the lifespan of a reusable polypropylene bag is only about four years. What happens to these bags when they have come to the end of their useful life?"

Where do shopping bags go when they are no longer useful?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many Australians are simply unaware that both reusable polypropylene (PP) and single-use high density polyethylene (HDP) and low density polyethylene (LDP) shopping bags are fully recyclable.

There are currently millions of unwanted bags lurking in households across Australia - but until now there has been no simple way to discard them responsibly. In theory, municipal recycling facilities can accept back plastic bags for recycling. However these must be sorted manually. As this is an expensive and time consuming process, most facilities currently send any collected PP, HDP and LDP waste to landfill.

Enter the RED program, a recycling initiative developed by the RED Group that's designed to educate Australians and assist councils by providing a sustainable disposal solution for both reusable and single-use shopping bags.

It's called RED, but it is, in fact, green.

RED stands for ‘Recycling + Education = the Difference'.

The RED program was designed and implemented by the RED Group to help the organisation achieve its objective of playing a part in building a sustainable future by offering practical, Australian-based recycling solutions for problematic waste.

The RED program will provide consumers with a simple means to dispose of their unwanted plastic shopping bags in an environmentally-responsible manner.

It will actively divert thousands of bags from landfill by setting up collection points for used plastic bag waste. The collected bags will be reprocessed into brand new items, including sturdy playground furniture, signage and traffic control products suitable for school use, by program partner Replas, Australia's foremost manufacturer of recycled-plastic products.

In this way, the RED program is a complete closed loop system where products at the end of their useful life are not sent to landfill but become the resource used to manufacture new useful products for Australian schools.

Closing the loop

The premise is simple. Used single-use and reusable plastic bags are collected via Australia's network of primary schools with participating schools hosting an annual RED Bag Drive. The school's choice of Replas recycled-plastic products (some of which may even be manufactured from the school's own waste) will then be delivered back to the school and the product loop is closed and complete.

The excitement generated in each school when these products are delivered and the students understand that they are made from the plastic they have collected is what makes this unique program tick. The RED Bag Drive is guaranteed to help students better understand and appreciate first-hand the importance of recycling, resulting in an increased awareness in the community that not all products need to end up in landfill.

Working towards a sustainable future

By communicating that it is possible to reprocess waste products into brand new products, as Replas do, the RED program may be able to help shape the future of the manufacturing industry in our country.

"The program's success will serve as a clear demonstration of a closed-loop product model to other Australian businesses," explains Kassell. "We hope it will encourage other organisations to consider how they can take responsibility for their manufactured goods at the end of their useful life and even build these learnings into their product development process."

To learn more about the RED program and how your school can get involved, email Elizabeth Kassell - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - or visit www.redgroup.net.au