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The road to sustainable recycling could not get harder.
Despite being the recommended evidence-based recycling guide, the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) is not widely available nor listed in many supermarket products such as meat trays, cosmetic products and food items. According to the City of Monash, the ARL is a voluntary scheme but the Federal Government is committed to working with businesses to achieve at least 80% of products in the supermarket by the end of 2023. What this means is that consumers would need to continually check their council’s recycling guide, exercise mindfulness material separation (to avoid contamination and causing recyclables to be sent into landfills) and make conscious shopping choices to avoid products that are difficult to recycle.
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So how do products get the ARL?
The ARL programme is exclusive to members of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation known commonly as APCO. Through APCO, members gain access to their online Packaging Recyclability Evaluation Portal (PREP) which assesses every piece of material that makes up the packaging of a product before assigning it/them the ARL. Membership to the APCO is not free and fees are calculated based on their total annual turnover which means, the more money the company makes annually, the more money they would need to pay to be an APCO member and to gain the ARL.
Check if your favourite brand or commonly used items are APCO members here.
Do you think the APCO membership fees would deter more brands from joining and hence delay helping the wider community to understand how to recycle their products? Do you think the ARL should be made mandatory for all products to ensure that the consumer is properly educated on recycling? Let us know your thoughts the comments below.
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ARL and Products
This article contains affiliate links, click here for our full disclosure. The road to sustainable recycling could not get harder. Despite being the recommended evidence-based recycling guide, the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) is not widely available nor listed in many supermarket products such as meat trays, cosmetic products and food items. According to the City of Monash,…
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