Foam Packaging Recycling Challenges in Australia

Foam has proven to be a very useful material, particularly in product packaging, as it has excellent shock-absorbing qualities, which make it great for protecting goods in transit. It is also very lightweight, which reduces transit costs and carbon emissions during transport.

However, foam packaging presents a number of challenges. Some of these include:

Foam is one of the most common materials found in illegally dumped waste. It is lightweight and easily breaks down into small pieces which can be easily carried by wind and water.

Foam takes up a disproportionately large space in landfill. This is because foam is mostly air, and has excellent compressive strength so it does not compact well (without machinery). Because of this, Foam can take up a lot of space in landfill, which can result in higher costs for local governments and businesses.

Foam is not presently gathered via curbside recycling programs in a lot of areas. There are a growing variety of drop-off points for foam recycling. Nevertheless, the recycling alternatives are largely fragmented presently (something we are wishing to change!).

That aside, it is a very simple material to recycle and can be recycled repetitively into resourceful products, which is why we need to do every little thing we can to recycle foam packaging and divert it from landfill.

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What Makes Foam Packaging Easy to Recycle?

Foam, is commonly considered reasonably easy to recycle due to numerous crucial characteristics:

# 1 Lightweight and Versatile: Foam is a lightweight and extremely functional material, that makes it simpler to deal with and carry for recycling compared to heavier plastics.

# 2 Physical Stability: Foam has outstanding physical stability, meaning it preserves its form and stability also after duplicated recycling cycles. This particular enables it to be recycled multiple times without significant deterioration in quality.

# 3 Excellent Insulation Properties: Foam is widely utilized for its superb insulation properties, which help keep items secure and protected during transportation. These same insulation properties make it appropriate for recycling, as it can be easily sorted and divided from other materials throughout the recycling process.

# 4 Market Need: Recyclers favor materials with a steady and solid market need. Foam has a wide range of applications, such as packaging, insulation, and construction, resulting in consistent need for recycled EPS.

How Much Foam is Recycled Currently?

Sadly, most of foam material is not recycled whatsoever, despite the fact that it is 100% recyclable. The Australian Product packaging Convention has claimed that just less than 19% of foam material is recycled in the nation.

This number is not wonderful for a developed nation, especially when compared to various other nations in Asia and Europe, which are doing a much better job.

Japan, for instance, has a superb recycling rate for foam material, thanks to its secure and mature market for the product. Currently, Japan is capable of recycling about 88% of its foam and is making strides towards improving this number.

Coming in on par with Japan's remarkable figures are numerous European nations, such as the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Finland and Italy. Denmark leads the charge as the very best recycler of foam material, flaunting a remarkable 95% recycling rate.

When thinking about how various other developed nations are executing, Australia has a fair little catching up to do.

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Points We Need to Get Over to Enhance Foam Packaging Recycling

Lack of Awareness

Among the greatest difficulties to get rid of with recycling foam product packaging is awareness. Raising recycling awareness is essential because there are still remarkably lots of people out there that do not know the significance of recycling or just how to do it. In addition, lots of people think that foam is not recyclable in all due to the fact that the interaction from many councils is to throw away it in the garbage container.

Informing the general population about the recyclability of this material and the importance of correct disposal is critical. Both personal and public stakeholders are required to put in every effort to educate more Australians about collection points and recycling choices, which can encourage greater involvement in recycling programs.

Fragmentation of Recycling Services

We discussed the influence of a fragmented recycling market earlier. An absence of infrastructure leads to inadequate waste management methods, minimal recycling centers, decreased public awareness, inadequate policies, and insufficient market advancement. All of these variables add to lower plastic recycling rates and impede progression towards an extra sustainable and circular approach to plastic waste.

Help us tackle this by spreading the word that foam is fully recyclable and can be become a resource such as insulation for sustainable buildings. Take action and recycle foam packaging with GREENMAX.


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