What the ACCC actually authorised
On 12 November 2025 the ACCC granted authorisation AA1000695-1 to Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia (SPSA) and its industry members, with conditions, running from that date to 4 December 2033. Authorisation is the mechanism that lets competitors collaborate on a scheme without breaching competition law, which is why a project jointly run by the major supermarkets and food manufacturers needs the regulator's sign-off at all. The scheme SPSA is authorised to run is a voluntary, industry-led product stewardship scheme for used soft plastic packaging, the shopping bags, food wrappers and similar films that kerbside recycling does not take.
It is paid for by the companies that generate the material. In the regulator's words, “industry participants will pay a fee based on how much soft plastic packaging they generate each year”, and SPSA describes the same mechanism as levies raised from brand owners and retailers to fund areas of market failure across the supply chain. The ACCC attached conditions aimed at keeping an industry-run scheme honest: annual public reporting on performance, independent reviews in year three and year seven, at least two independent directors on the SPSA board, and a bar on SPSA signing exclusive contracts with processors. ACCC Deputy Chair Mick Keogh said the case for it was consumer choice: “The recycling and collection options currently available to consumers are limited, and we consider that the SPSA scheme is an important way to expand those choices.”
The 31 July handover
The date to watch is 31 July 2026. That is when a separate ACCC authorisation, the one covering the Soft Plastics Taskforce and its processing of the stockpile of soft plastics left over when in-store collection collapsed, is due to expire. The SPSA scheme is meant to take over and expand from there. The complication is timing: on SPSA's own account the permanent scheme is not yet operating. Its public position is a scheme in development, with an open Request for Information described as “a vital step in shaping the future of Australia's national soft plastics recycling scheme” and a search for the organisational capabilities to implement it. There is no in-store or kerbside collection running under the SPSA banner today. So the interim arrangement lapses this month, and the eight-year scheme authorised to succeed it is still being designed.
Why a printer or converter should track this
The levy lands on the businesses that place soft plastic packaging on the market, which is the customer base for a large part of the flexible-packaging and label trade. The design decisions being taken now, through the RFI, are the ones that will set how the fee is calculated and whether it is modulated to reward more recyclable film, exactly the kind of eco-modulation the broader packaging reforms also point to. That makes this a scheme worth engaging with while it is still on the drawing board rather than after the fee schedule is fixed. It is also worth being precise about what this is and is not: SPSA is a voluntary, industry-led scheme authorised by the competition regulator, which is a different instrument from the mandatory national packaging EPR scheme a Senate committee is examining separately. Australia is building its packaging-stewardship settings on two tracks at once, and soft plastics is where the voluntary one is furthest along and, for now, least finished.