Curby Soft Plastics Program

The Curby Program works by tightly containing the soft plastics in specially branded Curby bags that can easily be filtered from other recyclables at the recycling sorting facility. 

Remember loose soft plastics can't be mixed with other recyclable items in your yellow-lid bin, due to the problems they cause at the facility where household recycling is taken. They get tangled in the sorting machinery, shutting down operations while they have to be manually removed. The sorting machinery can also mistake soft plastics for paper, with the plastic then contaminating the paper stream.

 

 

• Soft Plastic Snack wrappers
• Foil lined Chip packets
• Soft Plastic Fresh produce bags
• Soft Plastic Fruit netting (with the metal bits cut off)
• Soft Plastic Toilet paper wrapping
• Plastic carry bags
• Protective plastic film used in consumer goods packaging
• Dry pet food bags
• Cling wrap
• Any “scrunchable” soft plastics labelled with the 2, 4 or 5 recycling numbers
• Empty packaging with the ‘Return to Store’ or ‘Store Drop Off’ ARL (Australasian Recycling Label) symbol

 

Once you have placed your CurbyBag in the yellow lidded bin, your CurbyBag will make its way to the Material Recovery Facility (MRF), where it will be picked out and separated from the rest of the comingled recycling. From here it is baled and sent for processing, which may vary between MRFs depending on the processing options available.

The baled collected material is sent to the Smart Processing Engineered Commodity facility operated by iQ Renew. SPEC is dedicated to sorting and processing 100% post-consumer soft plastics. The facility transforms post -consumer soft plastic into high-grade feedstock tailored to various manufacturer’s needs:

• Our A-grade product is suitable for both chemical and mechanical processors and will enable the growth and development of this market in Australia.
• Our B-grade material is ideal for making recycled pellets for use in manufacturing plastic products. Examples of this include non-food grade films, construction and agricultural products and many other plastic items.
• Our C-grade material is suitable for products made from extrusion moulding such as park benches, bollards, fence posts and many other moulded products.

 

Council did not change the Curby Program as it is a third-party provided program.  Council was part of the initial trial of the program that was free.  
Council was advised of the cessation of the Trial by the program partners Curbcycle and IQ Renew and the launch of the New Curby Program in May 2025.  
For more information on the Curby trial and the change please see the Curby Trial Review

Since joining the Curby community as part of the trial, you potentially have previously earned Curby Points. These points won’t carry over into the updated Curby platform automatically or be visible, but they are still recorded against your account.  They will give you a great discount if you choose to sign-up to the subscription rewards program. 

Your points will be automatically converted to discounts when you subscribe to Curby Rewards Program.

Please note that while your subscription costs maybe covered by your previous points, there is a postage cost for your Curby pack.