Big Bag Recovery (BBR) is managed by Industry Waste Recovery Ltd. It aims to ensure that bags for products over 15kg or 15 litres are collected and recycled into other products. This prevents them from entering the waste stream.
BBR will collect bags used for fertiliser, mulch, salt, sugar and explosives. These are generally used in agriculture, food production, mining, construction, and other regional activities.
The arrangement will:
- reduce the amount of large bags entering the waste stream through landfill, waterways, marine environments or incinerated
- recover plastics from large bags for reuse as other products that can also be recycled once they reach end-of-life
- improve the national coverage of recycling drop-off points, collection and recycling facilities for large bags.
Members and participants
- Importers and bag manufacturers
- Brand owners
- Distributors
- Councils and drop-off centres
If you produce or use bulk bag products, or collect and recycle plastic waste, you can participate.
You can help recover and recycle big bags (polypropylene and low-density polyethylene) used in packaging across Australia.
How it works
Brand owners and importers pay a stewardship fee per bag to cover:
- their obligations
- recovery of the bag
- costs of the program.
The arrangement is funded by a uniform pricing model based on recovery and program costs. BBR charges the responsible entity the Brand Owners on a licence and recovery basis. Brand Owners may absorb the cost or pass this onto their consumer. A stewardship label is attached to each bag indicating that the fee has been paid and the bag is recoverable for recycling.
Existing sacks and big bags in circulation will also be collected under the arrangement at a cost to be determined.
Used big bags are collected directly from farms, industrial sites or local government waste drop-offs. The plastic is sorted, processed into resin and manufactured into other products such as:
- furniture for parks and schools
- sound abatement panels
- shipping pallets
- evaporative pads for water reservoirs.
Recycling and reuse
The Big Bag Recovery arrangement will collect bags from the agriculture, mining, construction and food industries, bale and send them to domestic recyclers for processing into resin pellets and then manufactured into new products.
An estimated 80,000 tonnes of this packaging is introduced into Australia each year. The proposed stewardship program will collect packaging through a series of drop-off and collection points and divert eligible packaging into environmentally sound recycling processes in Australia.
Find out about our Recycling Modernisation Fund.
How can industries take part
If you’re a business that utilises or manufactures big bags, an industry peak body, recycler or collector you can participate.
Contact Big Bag Recovery directly.
They are engaging with industry to encourage best practices and responsibility for their plastic packaging.
Read more
Visit the BBR website.
Check the website for details of planned roadshows and promotional events.
Contacts
Phone 1800 958 333
Stephen Richards, Managing Director
Phone 0499 053 255
Email stephen@bigbagrecovery.com.au
Stewart Ford, Program Director
Phone 0416 043 043
Email stewart@bigbagrecovery.com.au
Annual reports
We review and publish the annual reports for all voluntary arrangements. We will publish future annual reports here.