A grassroots volunteer group is calling on the major supermarkets to do more to help customers recycle soft plastics, saying it shouldn't be up to them to fix this environmental crisis.
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Slow Food Hunter Valley volunteers, who run the Food Rescue Kitchen out of Maitland Showground, are given 40 kilograms of soft plastic every year in donated food from supermarkets.
![Earth Market Maitland chairwoman Amorelle Dempster, left, with Food Rescue Kitchen volunteers Ann and Michael Melia and lots of soft plastic. Picture by Jonathan Carroll Earth Market Maitland chairwoman Amorelle Dempster, left, with Food Rescue Kitchen volunteers Ann and Michael Melia and lots of soft plastic. Picture by Jonathan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/A3aygSSaTF7hiCbjiqBAXx/e2d011b0-dc5f-417b-8fc2-bb507485e24a.jpg/r0_0_4852_3472_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
They can't take this waste back to the supermarket to be recycled. REDcycle announced it was suspending its soft plastics collection in late 2022 and it has not resumed.
The group is recycling the soft plastic through Maitland council's RecycleSmart program - a subsidised service that makes it free for residents to recycle two shopping bags worth of soft plastic per month.
"We have a plastic free earth market. We take responsibility for the packaging that's used at the market," Earth Market Maitland chairwoman Amorelle Dempster said.
"We shouldn't have to start collecting soft plastics at the earth market every time it's on, the supermarkets should be doing more and they need to take on that social responsibility."
Ms Dempster said a lot of the packaging the group received at the Food Rescue Kitchen was unnecessary.
"We don't need to wrap a lot of things in plastic. Perishables like meat obviously need to be wrapped but things like fruit - nature already has a beautiful wrapper on its fruit. Why do we need to put it in plastic as well? I find that ridiculous and we need to stop doing that," she said.
"If consumers put pressure on corporations to take that social responsibility then they can pressure them to change their ways."
The group will encourage residents to recycle plastic properly through a pop-up stall at the market in The Levee, Central Maitland, on July 3 and 17.
The move coincides with Plastic Free July.
Ms Dempster said the "educational role" would teach shoppers the difference between soft plastic and hard plastics and how each of them can be recycled.
"We'll have a couple of bins to put the soft plastic in and we'll talk to them about getting on the App and using the council's RecycleSmart service," she said.
A Maitland council spokesman said almost 9100 kilograms of everyday household items had been recycled through RecycleSmart and East Maitland, Thornton, Ashtonfield and Rutherford were leading the way with the most pickups in the Local Government Area (LGA) to date.
He said soft plastics made up 70 per cent of the volume that had been collected.
Soft plastics can be dropped into the earth market during July between 8am and 1pm. They can also be dropped into the Food Rescue Kitchen in the Teapot Cafe at Maitland Showground Monday to Friday between 9am and 1pm.