A conceptual editorial illustration showing multiple recycling arrows and circular economy loops tangled and overlapping in confusing directions, some loops broken and leading to a landfill icon, others looping back to a factory — clean flat-design vector style, muted green and grey palette, subtle warning/question mark motif, no text, no logos.

Start shopping for sustainable packaging and you hit a wall of claims: compostable, plant-based, eco-friendly, plastic-free. They sound similar and mean very different things. This one is written for the person actually packing the orders. What to ask suppliers, which claims hold up to scrutiny, and how to talk about your choices without overstating them.

Start shopping for sustainable packaging and you hit a wall of claims: compostable, plant-based, eco-friendly, plastic-free. They sound similar and mean very different things. This one is written for the person actually packing the orders. What to ask suppliers, which claims hold up to scrutiny, and how to talk about your choices without overstating them.

Yellow bin, collected, remade into new plastic. That's the comfortable version. The real figure is that only 12% of Australia's plastic gets recovered, which makes the honest question what happens to the other 88% once it's buried. What actually breaks down in a modern landfill, what doesn't, and why most "biodegradable" claims don't survive the trip.

Nobody wakes up thinking about bin liners, until the one you bought slides into the bin or splits on the way to the kerb. Sizing isn't complicated, but the product names make it harder than it needs to be. A straight guide to matching liner to bin, from a 10L benchtop caddy up to a 240L council wheelie.

Two near-identical packets on the shelf. One says "biodegradable", the other says "compostable". They feel like they should mean the same thing, and they don't. The difference decides where the packet actually ends up. A plain-English guide to all three terms, the Australian standards behind them, and how to match a product to the bin you actually have.

You have stood at the bin, squinting at the little triangle on the bottom of a container. Here is the catch: that number tells you what the plastic is made of, not which bin it belongs in. A plain-English guide to all seven resin codes, why the Australasian Recycling Label is the one that actually answers the question, and where the leftovers go.