In efforts against the war on waste, Petstock Group has joined forces with Royal Canin and TerraCycle to launch the Royal Canin Recycling Program at Petstock, Best Friends, Pet City and My Pet Warehouse stores nationwide, offering recycling infrastructure for all brands of pet food packaging.
With an estimated 28.7 million pets in Australia, a significant stream of pet food materials contributes to Australia’s waste numbers, which sit at over 63.8 million tonnes annually. Pet food tins and cardboard packaging can go into household recycling bins, however Australian pet owners have had limited opportunities to recycle pet food soft plastic packaging, such as dog and cat kibble bags and wet food pouches.
To make it easier for pet parents to bring their soft plastics back in store for recycling, Petstock Group is now offering recycling collection points,
“We continue to explore sustainability initiatives and remain dedicated to improving both our carbon footprint, but also consider how we can support our customers to reduce their impact on the planet,” Petstock Group CEO Shane Young said.
“We’re now making it easy for them to recycle, and they can bring their soft plastic pet food packaging in store while picking up new food and other pet goods.”
Royal Canin Sustainability and Partnerships manager Dean Richardson added: “The Petstock Group has demonstrated a strong commitment to sustainability, and we are proud to welcome Petstock, Best Friends, Pet City and My Pet Warehouse stores to the Royal Canin Recycling Program, to offer customers the opportunity to recycle their pet product packaging.
“We are always looking for ways to work with like-minded businesses to improve the circular economy in pet packaging, and partnering with the Petstock Group allows us to maximise the opportunity to recycle across their network of over 220 stores.”
“We are very excited that so many more Australians and New Zealanders will have access to the Royal Canin free recycling program thanks to the expansion of this program through Petstock stores,” TerraCycle ANZ general manager Jean Bailliard said.
Once the collection boxes are full, Petstock team members will ship them to TerraCycle where the contents will be manually sorted into different waste streams and sent on to specialised processing facilities to be recycled into raw materials. These raw materials can then be used to produce new products, to close the loop of the recycling journey. These end products may include benches, pot plants, compost bins, playgrounds, dog agility equipment and more.
