With over a decade’s experience, Plastic Forests understands how to recycle and remanufacture this challenging material. Soft plastics (or plastic films) are lightweight and voluminous, and hence notoriously difficult to collect, clean and recycle. Their contamination with organic food residues, ink, dirt, hay etc pose an even greater challenge for recycling. Most soft plastic recyclers use large volumes of water to clean the plastic for recycling, which is both uneconomical and creates another problematic waste stream. Households, agriculture and industry generate over 300,000 tonnes of soft plastic ‘waste’ (like plastic bags and packaging) in Australia each year, most of which is destined for landfill.

Since 2011, Plastic Forests’ innovative recycling technology has been transforming soft plastics into our growing range of sustainable GreenMongrel® nursery products as well as high-performance commercial, agricultural and infrastructure products including wheel stops, bollards, fence posts, underground cable cover and dunnage.

As a rural business, we also understand the difficulties farmers face disposing of their farm soft plastics, such as silage wrap, in an environmentally friendly way. We are excited that this plastic can now be upcycled into products like our long-lasting fence posts to create a circular economy for the equine and farming community.