Child car safety seats are an essential item for parents, but they can have a short life span.
Due to strict safety standards, the seats cannot be re-used unless they go through rigorous testing, which means they generate a lot of waste.
Approximately 1 million car seats, boosters and capsules are purchased each year in Australia, while about 20,000 others end up in landfill over that time.
Sarah Ryan was frustrated when her child quickly outgrew the safety seat, leaving her not knowing how to dispose of it.
But Ms Ryan was able to take part in a two-month trial that allowed people to get their child car seats recycled for free.
"I don't know what I would have done with it," she said.
"The seat would still be sitting where it was … in the carport at my home, and it's been sending me mad looking at it all the time."
While the trial has now ended, a national scheme is being rolled out later this year.
The intention is for the SeatCare service to be free of charge.
How will you be able to recycle your seat?
SeatCare is collaborating with Workpower to create eight collection points in WA and 25 across the country by the end of 2023.
It is also working with major car seat manufacturers and retailers.
Once the scheme begins, consumers will be able to visit the SeatCare website to find their closest drop-off site.
Workpower chief executive Lee Broomhall said the scheme would prevent potentially unsafe and old seats from being re-used in the community.
It was also identifying ways the various components could be recycled and made into new products, placing an onus on manufacturers to use sustainable material.
"Approximately a million car seats are purchased each year in Australia. This roughly equates to around 15,000 tonnes of mostly recyclable material being sent to landfill each year," Ms Broomhall said.
How will the scheme work?
SeatCare is federally authorised under the Product Stewardship Act.
Product stewardship is a method of encouraging producers, users and government to manage the impacts of products on the environment, and make them more beneficial for the community.
The act covers products like computers, drink bottles, industrial oils, mattresses, batteries and old televisions, to ensure manufacturers do something about their item when it reaches the end of its use.
The recycling scheme was initially prompted by the significant risk used seats held for children if they were not in sound condition, were damaged or did not meet the standards if they were handed down or sold for re-use.
But the other key aim is to reduce waste, with SeatCare saying 90 per cent of a child seat can be recycled.
The seats are mostly made from plastic, metal and textiles, and once they are collected they are grouped and dismantled.
"The metal goes off to our metal recycler partner, who will prep the metals for recycling. And similarly with the plastics, the plastic goes to a local plastics supplier, who looks at shredding that and creating new products," Ms Broomhall said.
"The polypropylene plastic can be recycled into low-value products such as cable covers.
"At the moment, we haven't got a partner for textiles."
Scheme providing opportunities
Outside of recycling, the scheme is also providing opportunities for workers with disabilities.
A Workpower spokesperson said around 10 employees with a disability were currently involved with the scheme.
They are trained to use power and hand tools, and identify brands and material types for sorting.
"The workload is broken down into several areas and each employee has a role to play in the dismantling and recycling of the seats," the spokesperson said.
"Hopefully, when the scheme is a more permanent part of the recycling loop, we can extend this out to many of [Workpower's] other sites, and grow our employees' skills."
How do product stewardship schemes work long-term?
Australian Council of Recycling CEO Suzanne Toumbourou said there were a few things to consider with the product stewardship scheme in order for it to be sustainable in the long term.
"One of the things that really needs to be addressed as you embark on a product stewardship scheme … with child car safety seats, is that we do consider not just their end of use, but also how to extend their use," she said.
She stressed the importance of having markets for parts of the product that were being recycled.
"Without a market for recycled materials, we end up in a take-make-waste economy," she said.
"We're creating a pipe where you produce and you consume, and then it ends up in a pile at the end. We absolutely need markets [for recycled material] so we can close that loop."
According to Ms Toumbourou, in order for a product stewardship scheme to be successful, it must be convenient and accessible to those who use the products.
"You have to make sure there are really good systems in place to incentivise people to drop those things off, because it's maybe just as easy to drop them on the curb for hard waste collection," she said.
Should they be mandatory?
Product stewardship schemes can be voluntary, co-regulated or mandatory.
In SeatCare's case it is completely voluntary, meaning the scheme encourages product stewardship without the need for regulation.
A mandatory scheme would ensure a legal obligation on organisations and parties to take certain action in relation to a product.
Requirements could be placed on parties using legislation.
This would include labelling products, making arrangements for recycling products at end of life or requiring a refund to be applied to a product.
Penalties may also apply if the law is breached.
Ms Broomhall said a mandatory product stewardship scheme would have many benefits.
"[It] would be fantastic across Australia, not just in car safety seats, but in other areas as well," she said.
"In this instance, you've got so many benefits, and that onus being back on the manufacturer, and that shared responsibility of everybody contributing to the solution."
The federal government has committed to transitioning Australia towards a circular economy by 2030.
In a circular economy, products would either be recycled, remade or re-used after they have reached their end of use.
Ms Toumbourou believed mandatory product stewardship schemes were a good step, but should not be the only step.
She said it was important to make sure recycling, repair and re-use was built into a mandatory scheme.
"We need producers and manufacturers and the sellers of items to take responsibility for what they put into the market," she said.
"We'd really like to see a lot more work go into how those seats might be in use for longer, how there might be a market for repair, how there might be a better market to support safe re-use."
