Transforming soft plastic recycling in the coffee industry
How Reground brought together diverse industry stakeholders to produce a Best Practice Guide on soft plastic coffee packaging.
Click here for the Soft Plastic Best Practice Guide.
In our work collecting and recycling soft plastic, the Reground team identified that producers, as well as consumers of this material, were struggling to make sustainable choices in the absence of clear, up to date and accessible information on recyclability.
Objective
Reground set out to produce a set of easy to follow Best Practice Guidelines that could increase transparency around soft plastic recycling and, ultimately, increase the quantity of packaging that could be successfully recycled.
Challenges and Solutions
By consulting with industry leaders from across the supply chain, Reground developed an overview of the kinds of packaging currently available to consumers and the features most important to coffee roasters and retailers.
We built on our existing relationship with local soft plastic recyclers to explore and document common barriers and misconceptions around recyclability and outline what Best Practice could look like for these specific materials.
Due to the changing nature of recycling infrastructure in Australia, it was important that the Guidelines reflect current recycling capabilities and that they could be easily updated to reflect changes. By committing to updating the Guidelines regularly, Reground incentivises manufacturers to make changes towards meeting Best Practice.
Implementation
As a document designed to work across the supply chain, the Best Practice Guide went through multiple feedback rounds with all stakeholders
We designed the guide itself to be easily comprehensible for consumers as well as coffee industry and packaging professionals and included a simple breakdown of features along with a glossary of terms to assist with this.
“As a person who wants to do better but finds the conflicting information and abbreviations out there confusing, it really laid things out in simple but explicit terms.”
Janna, Wood & Co Coffee
Results
Reground developed Best Practice guidelines for soft plastic recycling in the coffee industry. Since the first version of the Best Practice Guide was produced, one of the participating packaging manufacturers has already added new features reflecting the Best Practice we have identified.
We anticipate that the next iteration of the Guide will both include more manufacturers and reflect positive changes among those listed towards increased recyclability in their products.
Impact
For packaging manufacturers, coffee roasters, and retailers seeking to enhance their sustainability, this guide offers practical advice. Furthermore, it provided coffee consumers with information to help them make better decisions.
