Australia’s first sustainability awards, highlighting the best, worst and most ridiculous packaging

The Challenge

Australia Post has publicly committed in its 2025 Sustainability Roadmap to offer soft plastics recycling at select regional postal outlets. This sits within a complex national context, where the soft plastics recycling industry in Australia is evolving rapidly but remains immature, with variable capability, infrastructure and risk profiles across providers and regions.

At the time of the national pause, Australia Post was rolling out a soft plastics collection program in partnership with REDcycle. This necessitated an immediate market reassessment and created both operational and reputational risk for organisations with public commitments.

The challenge was to determine and assess the best approach and alternative solutions emerging in the Australian market, and to ensure any future approach would be credible, defensible and aligned with Australia Post’s obligations as a government business enterprise.

Our Approach

To spotlight these issues publicly, give a voice to Australians, drive a national conversation and meaningful systems change, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Plastic Free Foundation and WWF-Australia established the Unpackit Awards in 2025.

Australians can nominate packaging from retail, the postal system and hospitality settings they believe is either great, or … not so great! 

Any Awards initiative requires robust governance and expert judgement, so that outcomes are trustworthy, influential, and credibly inform future policy.

Assessing packaging against circular economy principles is inherently complex. 

There is no single ‘scorecard’ that captures environmental impact, design quality, reusability, litter potential and end-of-life outcomes. Definitions of what constitutes ‘excessive’, genuinely ‘reusable’ or ‘refillable’ packaging are often contested, and credibility depends on more than opinion or the material the packaging is made from – it requires a holistic, systems-based approach, underpinned by a deep understanding of packaging and the systems it operates within. 

Bel’s Role in the Unpackit Awards

Bel was invited to serve on the technical and judging expert panel, providing independent technical and strategic advice to support credibility and integrity.

This included working alongside other experts from industry, academia and consulting to:

• Establish definitions and judging framework, and principles
• Design robust, defensible criteria for assessing packaging
• Assess a shortlist of entries, following initial assessment

Bel also supported the Awards by:

• Sourcing a qualified data scientist through her networks to streamline and support the awards entries
• Providing advice on best practice awards governance, process and record keeping based on her experience judging the Banksia Awards and the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation Awards
• Promoting the Awards on national radio, at the Woodford Folk Festival and her social media networks – with humour and flair!

Her contribution draws on over twenty years’ experience spanning the entire packaging value chain, across waste and recycling systems, infrastructure implementation, recycling and reuse programs, and leadership roles in larger retailers, including Sustainable Packaging Manager at Australia Post.

The result

This contribution ensures the awards are a credible mechanism for public engagement, expert evaluation, and system-level influence, and that they are evaluated consistently and against realistic benchmarks.

The nominations from the general public are being assessed in early 2026 – stay tuned!

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