Australia’s first large-scale soft plastics recycling facility has opened, which means you might be able to start recycling all those empty packets piling up in your kitchen again.

The plant has already processed tens of thousands of tonnes of the stockpile leftover from the ill-fated REDcycle scheme, which collapsed in 2022.

The $9.1 million in state and federal investment in the facility is no doubt a step in the right direction. But, as research from The Australia Institute shows, the amount of plastics consumed in Australia has doubled since the year 2000, and it is expected to double again by 2050.

A more effective way to deal with the waste is to not create it in the first place. That’s why the European Union has a tax on plastic waste, set at €0.80 per kilo. Australia Institute research shows that if Australia applied a tax on plastic packaging at the same rate as the EU, and charged it to plastic producers and importers like Spain does, it could raise $1.5 billion a year…