50.6m tonnes of Australian waste recycled in 2024–25

The National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2026¹ has shown industry recycled 50.6 million tonnes of waste in 2024–25, while the Australian Plastics Flows and Fates Report 2024–25² indicates that local plastics reprocessing rose 34% to 403,000 tonnes.

Federal, state and industry investment through the Recycling Modernisation Fund has helped build the facilities and capacity needed to recover more of Australia’s resources.

However, Australia is generating more waste, including more per person, according to the reports, and are consuming more plastic, despite the National Waste Policy Action Plan setting a national target of 10% reduction per capita, back in 2018.

Australia generated 79 million tonnes of waste in 2024–25, up 4.1% on the previous year. Waste generated per person rose by 2.5%. The national resource recovery rate reached 67.5% — short of the 80% target for 2030 — while waste disposal remained at 25.7 million tonnes.

Plastic consumption is also continuing to increase. Australia consumed 4.2 million tonnes of plastic products and packaging, up from 4.0 million tonnes the year before. Industry recovered 512,000 tonnes of end-of-life plastics, a 15% improvement, yet the plastics recovery rate was only 16%.

Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) CEO Gayle Sloan said the figures show that government investment and industry’s effort will continue to be limited when they continue to ask the waste and resource recovery industry to solve a problem that starts long before products reach the bin.

“The Recycling Modernisation Fund has helped industry invest in Australian sorting and reprocessing. That investment matters, and the national figures show real progress. We should recognise it and the people making it happen,” Sloan said.

“But recyclers are still working with one hand tied behind their backs. We cannot recycle our way to a circular economy while Australia puts more plastic, most of which is imported, on the market each year without clear national rules for design, producer responsibility, demand for recycled materials and limited access to overseas markets.”

Sloan said the headline recovery figure also masks significantly different performance and progress across Australia’s waste and resource recovery system.

“Most of the long-term improvement has been driven by recovery of construction and demolition waste. Municipal waste recovery has increased by less than one percentage point since 2016–17. We need settings that lift performance across the whole economy, particularly commercial and industrial, which represents 43% of Australia’s waste generation yet receives very little attention from policymakers.”

The plastics data further highlights the need for national action across supply chains. Around 61% of plastic consumption came from imported finished and semi-finished goods, while the recycled content of imported goods could not be determined. It also cautions that reported spare reprocessing capacity does not establish whether suitable material or end markets exist.

“These are supply chain gaps the Commonwealth must help close — only they have power and ability to act on exports and imports,” Sloan said.

“Applications to access legitimate overseas recycling markets remain unresolved while national packaging reform stalls. Industry needs buyers for the material it recovers, rules that stop poorly designed packaging entering the system in the first place, and export restrictions fast-tracked whilst we do not have the local markets promised.

“Environment ministers promising another packaging reform plan is not enough to get Australia where it needs to be by 2030. We need a timetable for nationally enforceable packaging design rules, mandatory producer responsibility across packaging, recycled content requirements and procurement that creates dependable markets. The rules must apply to imported products as well as those made here.

“Managing packaging already has a cost. Households, councils and recyclers are paying it now. Producers should be responsible for the products they place on our market and have a reason to design waste out from the start.

“The national data shows industry has put in the work. Infrastructure is being built and the industry is investing. Now governments at all levels need to do their work and build both the promised regulatory and market settings that allow that investment to succeed.”

_{1 National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2026
2 Australian Plastics Flows and Fates Report 2024-25}

Image credit: iStock.com/Ega Bismahadi Gupta