Rob Langford, who served as The Packaging Forum’s Independent Chair prior to his new appointment, took the reins as its first chief executive on 1 October 2020.

Rob says he’s looking forward to beginning his new role, which he believes will flow seamlessly from that of Independent Chair. “This is an exciting time for the future of sustainable packaging in New Zealand, one in which industry has the responsibility to lead and show the way.”

Adele Rose, who has been acting as the Forum’s interim General Manager, says Rob’s appointment comes at a time when there is ever-increasing pressure across society for businesses to become more sustainable. The Forum researches, creates and advocates for evidence-based sustainable packaging solutions.

“In the past few years the pace of change and level of engagement with Government, communities and other stakeholders has increased, making a full-time leadership role essential,” Adele says. “The Packaging Forum represents the depth and breadth of the industry, and its members are dedicated to finding sustainable solutions for their packaging.”

Rob brings decades of experience to the new role, including technical expertise and design development skills to solve complex issues, Adele says. He leads a team which already delivers two Government-accredited product stewardship schemes – the Glass Packaging Forum and Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme.

“The Forum also has a number of technical advisory groups working on end-of-life and circular economy solutions for various types of packaging, and labelling,” she says. “The appointment of Rob as our CEO will bring cohesion to all of our activities, some of which rely extensively on members who generously volunteer their time and expertise.”

Recent Government announcements declaring single-use plastic packaging a priority product under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008, and a proposed phase-out of hard-to-recycle plastics and some single-use plastic items, have helped accelerate work being done by the Forum.

“We certainly support these moves by Government as they align with our members’ commitment to better environmental outcomes for their packaging. However, it’s important for industry to have a voice in the decision-making process so its collective experience, know-how and expertise can help bring about the best possible outcomes.”

From Monday 14th September, collections bins will return to Auckland Countdown stores in Orewa, Helensville, Henderson, Northwest, Northcote, Sunnynook, St Lukes, Three Kings, Beachlands, Mangere Mall, Manukau City Mall, Roselands and in Northland to Countdown Kaikohe, Paihia Central and Regent (Whangarei).

This expansion means that there are almost 100 locations now offering a drop off service for soft plastic bags and wrappers across Upper North Island and in the Wellington Region. This recycling service is 100% funded by industry members of the voluntary product stewardship scheme.

Chair of the scheme Malcolm Everts says: “This year despite the disruption caused by COVID-19 we have increased the number of stores and regions serviced by the scheme. This has been made possible because of the increased demand for our soft plastics from our New Zealand processing partners.”

“Future Post has more than doubled its processing capacity this year thanks to new sales with local and central government departments and industry. The more demand for the products manufactured from our soft plastic waste, the more we can and will collect for recycling.

“We encourage everyone that has access to one of our participating stores to drop off their clean and dry plastic bags and wrappers so we can recycle them.”

Chris Meyer, General Manager of Future Post says: “Forty-five tonnes of soft plastics were processed at our plant in July. That’s equivalent to around 7.5 million bread bags, chip packets, frozen food bags or toilet roll wrappers diverted from landfill. Our posts are now in vineyards, farms, parks and private land from Northland to Southland. We have added new products such as square posts, Vege Boxes for gardens, and parking stops to our range.”

Countdown’s General Manager Corporate Affairs, Safety & Sustainability, Kiri Hannifin, says: “It’s been fantastic to see more and more of our stores with their soft plastics recycling bins out for our customers and we’re really excited to see how quickly Future Post’s operations are growing.

“The more opportunities we can give our customers to recycle these sorts of plastics, the better. We’re working closely with the scheme to extend to even more stores in the coming months.

The Packaging Forum set up soft plastics collections in 2015 and the scheme received accreditation as a voluntary product stewardship scheme under the Waste Minimisation Act in March 2018.

Chair of the scheme Malcolm Everts says that the collapse of global markets for mixed plastics forced a major re-set of the scheme in 2019 and this has been further influenced by COVID-19 limiting collections and processing for a period of time.

“Our scheme is focused on supporting local processors. Two years ago, there was no onshore processing of post-consumer soft plastics. Today there are two North Island plants Future Post in Waiuku and Second Life Plastics in Levin which are great examples of Kiwi ingenuity and we are increasing every month the tonnes which we send for recycling.

“With the expansion of their capacity we can now offer soft plastic recycling to around 60% of the population with drop off points across Auckland, Waikato, Northland, Bay of Plenty and Wellington. We will be adding more stores in more regions throughout the year.”

“As a voluntary scheme, we already have over 70% of industry by volume funding the recycling programme and membership has increased by 20% in the past year to 75 companies. We are also working with members on the design of their packaging, reducing creation of plastic packaging waste, and advocate using our “return to store” labelling system.”

“Scheme members’ levies fund collections from stores, quality checks, baling, transport to end markets and contribute to the processing costs as well. This is different from the traditional model where the processor pays the collector/recycler for the materials, so we are well prepared to transition to a regulated scheme model.”

“We hope to see soft plastic recycling processing projects funded in this year’s Waste Minimisation Funding Round and through the proposed $124 million investment in recycling announced by the Government earlier this month. It is only with a substantial increase in processing capacity including the South Island that the Scheme can deliver its full potential”

“We will work with the Ministry for Environment to develop a sensible co-design process to transition our voluntary product stewardship scheme to meet the new regulations over the next three years. In the meantime, it is business as usual for our scheme.”

The Packaging Forum set up soft plastics collections in 2015 and the soft plastic recycling scheme received accreditation as a voluntary product stewardship scheme under the Waste Minimisation Act in March 2018.

Chair of the scheme Malcolm Everts says that the scheme is a genuine example of a circular economy which directly funds collection, transport and processing: “The report shows a tale of two different years and reflects the massive changes in global recycling conditions. Different times need different approaches and we have evolved from collecting as much as possible and shipping it to offshore recyclers, to collecting what we can process here in Aotearoa. Local processing is critical, and we have built close partnerships with Future Post and Second Life Plastics.”

“We adapted the scheme to match collections with NZ processing capacity, plus we have put further focus on reduce and re-use initiatives like phasing out single use plastic bags. It is pointless collecting waste if there is nowhere to recycle it. In 2019, around 13 million bags, enough to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool were collected and recycled in New Zealand, and that’s without the shopping bags that have been banned. This is in contrast to 2018 when 100 million bags were dropped off for recycling, but overseas recycling markets dried up and we stopped collections temporarily to deal with the excess.”

Mr Everts added: “Product stewardship schemes must be flexible to adapt to the economic and environmental climate. Kiwis are engaged, and happy to clean, collect & deliver material for recycling. Industry is engaged under a voluntary approach and around 70% of brands that use soft plastic are scheme members funding the recycling service and taking steps within their own businesses to reduce plastic consumption where feasible.”
Scheme Manager Lyn Mayes agreed that flexibility and loyalty has been critical:

“Since the scheme received accreditation in March 2018, we first had to deal with the impact of China’s National Sword Policy which resulted in us suspending collections in early 2019 and this year we again suspended collections during COVID-19 lockdown. Throughout these changing times, I would like to thank the ongoing support and loyalty of our members, collection and processing partners and consumers.”

The report concludes that the principal limiting factor for the scheme is that there are only two processors in the North Island which are able to process post-consumer soft plastics and notes that expansion of processing capacity requires:

• Demand for the plastic fence posts, garden edging, cable cover and other products currently being manufactured from soft plastic materials;
• Investment in new processing facilities around New Zealand by central and local government in partnership with industry; and
• There needs to be multiple “Future Posts” to create capacity; and Commitment by local and central government departments and Industry to purchase products made from recycled materials.

Click here to download the report.