“The regulations around the packaging the food industry uses and related waste are set to get a lot tougher,” says Food Auditor Gary Kennedy of Correct Food Systems.

Gary’s presentation on the subject at the IHHC Conference last month emphasised major change is on the way which will impact both manufacturers and end-users, including those in health and aged care.

“Up to now we’ve had codes of practice, but they really haven’t worked, so from next year the Government is playing hardball with everyone,” Gary says.

“These new packaging laws will apply across all of industry, which means it will affect us in health and aged care foodservice. Some of it is about closing existing gaps and some of it is new policy.”

Providing some historical context around the planned changes, Gary explains: “When the Australian Food Standards code first appeared back in 2000, there was a standard called Articles and Materials in Contact with Food - for most of us in the food industry that’s things like utensils, plates, wrap, lips and trays. Within the food manufacturing side it’s jars and lids and boxes and pallets – anything that makes food contact. That standard said that all packaging must not cause harm, distress or discomfort.

“FSAANZ has since rescinded that standard because it’s covered off in other sections of the code, and because their surveys showed there were no chemicals in packaging causing issues. That puts us out of step with most other countries, in that we don’t have anything in our food standards that explicitly says packaging must be safe.

“In its place are three standards – 1.1.1 which says any packaging must not cause bodily harm; 3.2.2 which says packaging must not be likely to contaminate food; and 1.4.1 which addresses contaminants and natural toxicants and has lists of chemicals that sometimes come out of packaging. So you can see the law does say packaging must not cause harm and must not contaminate food. There’s also the Safe Food Australia document, which makes reference to AS2070:1999 plastic materials for food contact use which basically says if your packaging meets the US or EU standard, you’re meeting the Australian standard.

“The Federal Government has since set up APCO, the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, which has put in place recycling targets. The best publicised one is the banning of plastic shopping bags and spoons. However, none of these targets were being met, so there was a recent meeting of environment ministers in which they decided to potentially legislate this.

“This would mean packaging costs are set to go up, which is going to impact upon foodservice suppliers as well as foodservice businesses.”

Gary says APCO has two primary aims: “One is to optimise recovery of packaging, in other words to make it easier to recycle by changing its design or manufacturing process. One practical example is how water bottles are much thinner than they used to be, which means there’s less plastic there. Plastic straws have been replaced with paper on juice boxes because paper’s easier to recycle. So we’re seeing these changes starting to come through.

“The other aim is to prevent the impacts of fugitive packaging, which means loose bits of packaging like the lid on drink bottles or straws on juice bottles ending up as separate pieces. These aims are supported by all states and territories and the Federal Government and different states are now introducing their own legislative changes at different times.

“These are the targets that are all supposed to be in place by the end of next year. By then, every single piece of packaging you bring on site, whether you’re going to use it to put your product in, or whether it’s the box or the rack it came in, is all meant to be reusable, recyclable or compostable. In other words, all packaging goes into the green or yellow bin, nothing you bring in can go in the red bin.

“Another important change is that of the plastic packaging you use on site, 70 per cent of your waste plastic will have to go into the yellow or green bin – only 30 per cent can go to landfill, which means you’re going to have to measure your waste. Fifty per cent of all packaging you bring and use will also have to contain recycled content – including aluminium, cling wrap, trays, baking paper, anything you use to wrap with.”

Gary says this will likely spell the end of plastic that’s not recyclable – “PVC and polystyrene are among the list, so supposedly by the end of 2025 we’re going to see the end of the broccoli box, the end of PVC stretch wrap on pallets. However in practice it’s going to take longer, because what was a 2025 goal is now set to become legislation to be phased in by 2030.”

The NSW Government has recently released its own list of goals in this regard – and one that jumps out is requiring plastic bottles to have tethered lids, so they remain attached to the bottle.

“Basically all Australian states are doing things off their own initiative and out of step with each other,” Gary explains. “But in the above case, if you’re a major drink manufacturer you can’t only introduce tethered lids in NSW – you’ll have to do it nationally because of economies of scale. These are already a requirement in Europe so it’s a question of introducing that technology here.

“The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water have recently put out a public submission on their thoughts of where packaging should go. From this it’s clear that was up to now code of practice is about to become mandatory. So all the things I’ve been talking about for the different states are about to become mandatory nationally. And this 100 recyclable, 50 per cent recycled content by 2030 will be a be a national standard.

“This means that for both foodservice suppliers and end-users, the cost of your packaging is going to substantially increase.”

Gary says this is because recycled packaging tends to be about 50 per cent more expensive than virgin plastic or paper. “The DCCEEW have said they’re going to mandate these targets, reduce or eliminate certain chemicals such as PFAS and BPA, increase the number of recycling plants and create markets for recycled materials. It’s all very well to build recycling plants, but the problem right now is no one’s buying the recycled plastic because it’s cheaper to buy the virgin stuff – so they’re going to mandate it by requiring you to use 50 per cent recycled content.”

There are increasing concerns about the use of the aforementioned PFAS and BPA in packaging, as Gary emphasises: “PFAS has been in the news in Sydney because it’s been found in waterways, the chemicals take centuries to break down. It’s used to make things slippery – every piece of activewear clothing is coated in it and Europe is looking to ban it in clothing because they don’t know whether it goes through to the skin and there are definite links to cancer. Twenty states in the US have already banned it in food contact packaging; McDonalds has banned it in their US operations and Costco has banned it worldwide – making them, by default, the first to ban it in Australia.

“The Australian drinking water standard has already been changed to reduce the level of PFAS that can be in drinking water, and it’s clear that the Government intends to ban this chemical in all packaging – not just food packaging.

“BPA is also on the hitlist – this phenyl is used to harden plastics and it has been linked to autism in children. It’s used in some plastics in the food industry, notably in a chemical called polycarbonate which is what water cooler bottles are made from. It’s not an issue if the bottle has only cold water in it, but if it’s in a plastic food container that you heat and cool, there’s a possibility of the chemical coming out of the plastic and going into the food. So it’s likely to be banned in any plastics that have human contact.

“All this is likely to be legislated in 2025, to be in place by 2026 with a three year phase-in period to follow. Which means it will really kick in for our industry in 2030.”

The ACCC has also recently weighed in to the discussion, with a comment on greenwashing: “Basically they’ve said if you say something is recyclable or compostable, that can’t mean it goes to a factory and there’s a huge amount of chemicals used to break it up so it can eventually become usable again. What the ACCC has said is what recyclable means to consumers is that it goes in the yellow bin, and compostable means it goes in the green bin, or you can put it in your compost heap. So we can expect an ACCC crackdown on companies claiming things are recyclable or compostable.”

To this end, there’s now a soft plastics taskforce which is working on a trial program in Melbourne, where you put your soft plastic packaging like frozen food bags into an orange bag which goes into your yellow bin, and at the recycling plant the soft plastics get separated out.

“It’s been very successful,” Gary says, “but the problem is there’s no market for the soft plastic when it's recycled. Currently only 15 per cent of packaging is recycled in Australia and it’s estimated we’re going to double our plastics use by 2050 – we’re steadily increasing our use of plastics.”

However, Gary adds there is one shining star in Australia’s recycling program – the beverage container deposit scheme. “Around 66 per cent of all beverage containers are now recycled, which is way ahead of anything else in the country. In South Australia, where they’ve had it in place since the 1970s, the figure is close to 90 per cent. Next year it’s set to be expanded – Queensland already has wine and spirits in it, there’s now talk of putting milk cartons in it, cordial bottles, Soda Stream concentrates – and it’s going to become standardised all around the country.”

The Federal Government is also putting funds behind the expansion and establishment of recycling plants, particularly for soft plastics, under its $60m Recycling Modernisation Fund - $5m was recently given to a plastics plant in Altona, Victoria and $20m to establish a plant in Kilburn, SA.

In any event, the pace of all this change is set to continue to accelerate – on the near horizon is the standardisation of recycling symbols and their mandatory use of products, to give just one example.

Gary summarises: “The key takeaway is that Government has said codes of practice aren’t working and so many things are going to become mandatory, and not just for the food industry; we just happen to be picked on first because the most common plastic waste at home is food waste.”