Learn about our Clear Plastic Recovery Program

At Bintani, we take our commitment to making the brewing and distilling industry cleaner and greener seriously. We are taking the lead in making sure that distillers and brewers have ways that they can reduce their environmental footprint, so that we can help look after the planet and continue to enjoy using the best ingredients now and long into the future.

That’s why we’ve introduced our Clear Plastic Recovery Program. This initiative offers our customers an easy and convenient way to make sure that their clear plastic waste doesn’t just go straight to landfill sites, and is recycled for use in other areas and industries.

We’ve teamed up with Australian Paper Recycling, who will collect clear plastic waste from our handy drop off point at our Melbourne warehouse. The team then take the plastic and upcycle it into feedstock oil for the remanufacture of plastics via their plastic processing stream.

We launched the Clear Plastic Recovery Program  early in 2024, and have seen a fantastic response from people within the industry  looking for a better way to  dispose of their plastic waste. To give you more insights into the program, we spoke to Clive Townsend, Recycling Executive at Australian Paper Recycling:

‘How did this collaboration between Bintani & APR come about?’
Rob Welch (Bintani’s QA Manager) reached out asking questions about waste stretch wrap. A problem that industry wide is generally going to landfill. Whilst most companies aren't aware, there are options and it can be recycled. We offer mechanical recycling of clear poly bags and clear stretch wrap materials. In fact, a little over 3 months ago, we started an industry first initiative to return stretch wrap back into stretch wrap. It has progressed from a trial to proving itself to be commercially viablDown grading the material to other low use plastics is becoming increasing important to our sustainability as a first world society.

‘Why is it important that the brewing & distilling industry recycle soft plastic?’
The stretch plastic and poly-film bags are Polyolefins, which can be mechanically recycled savings 80% CO2 emissions when re-made is one side of the equation. [The other is] the mixed coloured soft plastics which are by far the widest part of industry manufacturing. This has been hindered by the proliferation of other additives which contaminated the recycling such as PET, PVDC, EVOH. These cannot be removed from the laminated brewing bags and are in such high ratios that recycling is limited. Serious changes are being made to address this in Australia, whereby companies are using greater levels of monomers such as PE (40 %), EVOH (2-4 %) and  (PP 50%) plus. While these still cannot be mechanically recycled, it can be fully realised via APR Plastics Pyrolysis Technology or Chemically Advanced recycling.

‘What happens to the soft plastic we recycle?’
The clear plastics, which have a higher intrinsic value, are recycled by traditional means and converted into plastic pellets, which are used to produce lesser quality, lesser valued products, such as builders’ film or planter pots.

So we know that recycling a lot of plastics used within our industry is more complex than it may seem, and takes a lot of work from companies like APR to make sure that it is not only being recycled in an effective way, but also able to be re-used across other industries to help them become more sustainable too. With the introduction of this program, we’ve seen that there is a huge desire from brewers and distillers to make sure they are meeting the recycling challenge head on, and we want to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

‘Bintani's innovative clear plastic recycling program has significantly reduced the frequency of our garbage pick-ups and efficiently diverting plastic waste from landfills.’
Charlie Tompson, Braeside Brewing.

We also asked our own QA Manager, Rob Welch about how the Clear Plastic Recovery Program has been going since its launch.

‘How much soft plastic have we saved from going to landfill, and do we have any goals for volumes recycled with this initiative?’
 So far we have collected 200 kgs of clear soft plastics. Currently we do not have any specific annual recycling volume targets As we  are in the discovery phase, observing and evaluating the level of participation.

‘What can't be included in soft plastics recycling?’
Clear soft plastics cannot be recycled if they have paper, masking tape, or any other tape attached, as these materials can interfere with the recycling process. When recycling clear soft plastics, it is important to ensure that these contaminants are removed beforehand.

We hope as the program develops that we are able to help everyone in the industry to reduce their waste from production, in a way that utilises the advances in recycling methods to make sure that we are looking after the environment that provides us all with all the ingredients we use throughout the industry. With sustainability and using eco-friendly methods for production and packaging becoming ever more prevalent and important, we want our Clear Plastic Recovery Program to lead the way in making it much easier for everyone in the industry to do more.

“Soft plastic is a major issue environmentally both at home and commercially – creating unnecessary landfill and waste. Bintani’s new program shows great leadership and service to their customers – redirecting a waste product for recycling and removing a large portion of our rubbish collection.”
Brendan Guild, Bad Shepherd Brewing.

To find out more about the program, head to our website or get in touch.