Why Soft Plastics Need Separate Collection
Launch library · evergreen read
Soft plastics, such as bread bags, cling wrap and plastic packaging film, behave very differently from rigid plastics like bottles once they enter a sorting facility. Their thin, flexible shape means they tend to wrap around rollers and moving parts in sorting machinery rather than moving cleanly through it.
This tangling can jam or damage equipment designed primarily around rigid containers, sometimes forcing a facility to stop the line entirely to clear the blockage, which slows processing for every other material passing through at the same time, not just the soft plastic causing the problem.
Because of this, many areas ask residents to keep soft plastics out of kerbside recycling and instead use dedicated collection points, often at supermarkets, where the material can be gathered separately and processed by facilities specifically set up to handle its shape and flexibility without the same jamming risk. Keeping this material out of the kerbside stream, even though it feels counterintuitive to a household trying to recycle as much as possible, actually improves overall recycling outcomes.