"Recyclable" Doesn't Mean "Recycled"

The comforting story we tell ourselves - and the landfill reality

How often do you hear “but it’s recyclable”?. I hear it in supermarkets, road-side service centres and worksites. Someone holds up a plastic cup or bottle, taps the little triangle, and presents it like a diplomatic passport: This item may pass without further question.

Now don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying “stop using your recycling bin”. Keep recycling what you can. I’m saying we’ve been sold a comforting story. I’m arguing against the myth that a label on a packet equals a real-world outcome. Because here's the harsh truth, that triangle is largely doing emotional work, not material work. It's greenwashing and tricking us into thinking everything is OK when it's not.

The Australian Government's own plastics data shows most of what we throw into our recycling bins ends up in landfill! Australia consumes over 4.0 million tonnes of plastic, each year and over three quarters of that is disposable stuff like plastic bottles. But we recover less than 500,000 tonnes each year - so our actual recycling rate is less than 13%.

Let that settle. We are not “recycling plastic.” We are mostly landfilling plastic, with a thin slice diverted. So, yes, you can keep sorting your rigid containers at home. But if you’re doing that while buying more and more plastic, you’re basically running faster on a treadmill.

Australia has plastics recycling targets that Ministers like to throw around. But here's the thing: they're not being met. Australia’s National Packaging Targets (set back in 2018) include the big one everyone quotes: 70% of plastic packaging recycled or composted by 2025. Reality check: it already is 2025! And the recycling rate is only 13%.

This is where “recyclable” becomes an even sneakier word. Something can be technically recyclable in a lab and on its label, but functionally unrecyclable once you add: real-world contamination, mixed polymers, missing collection systems, weak markets, pizza fat, snotty tissues and “I thought you could put soft plastics in the bin too!”

So what's the answer?

Here’s my version of honesty:

1. Stop pretending we can recycle our way out of this. We need laws that reduce plastic production. Not just better bins, better labels and better “consumer choices”. We need legislated phase-outs and standards that shrink the flood of disposable plastics in the first place.

2. Make producers carry the cost. Not through voluntary, warm and fuzzy “we’re all in this together” pledges, but through enforceable extended producer responsibility, recycled-content requirements, and design standards that eliminate unrecyclable composites and unnecessary packaging.

3. Stop using “recyclable” as a marketing claim without proof. Australia’s consumer law already prohibits misleading conduct; the ACCC has issued guidance on environmental claims and greenwashing for exactly this reason.

   
   

And for everyday Aussies, a rule of thumb that keeps you sane: When you hear “But it’s recyclable,” quietly add the missing words: “…in theory.” Then ask the real question: Should this have been made from plastic in the first place? Do I really need it? Is there a non-disposable alternative?

Australia's recycling rate is less than 15%