Back in 2007, Anthony Peyton of GreenChip set out to solve a fundamental problem: packaging recyclability was often assessed by its format, such as a rigid PET bottle, rather than the specific characteristics that determine whether it can actually be recycled. The answer lay in the details: an item’s size, materials and shape. His solution was the Packaging Recyclability Evaluation Portal (PREP), which began as a handful of tables in a Word document. By scoring packaging against these key characteristics, PREP gave designers a clear, evidence-based way to assess recyclability.
Building the standard
It took until the end of 2014 for PREP to become an online tool, with Nestlé the first business to put it to use. Two years later in 2016, Planet Ark and GreenChip joined forces to launch the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL), giving shoppers a simple, trustworthy way to know what belongs in the recycling bin, backed by the evidence PREP was generating at the design stage. Officeworks and Blackmores were the first businesses to carry the label, as PREP expanded around the same time to reflect New Zealand's recycling system.
By 2017, the idea had outgrown its beginnings as a side project. GreenChip, Planet Ark and Innovyz came together to establish PREP Design Pty Ltd. The following year, PREP Design and Planet Ark partnered with the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) to make PREP and the ARL available to APCO’s members — the brand owners and packaging manufacturers who sign on to Australia’s packaging sustainability scheme.
Growing industry adoption
Nearly a decade on, that partnership has scaled well beyond what anyone could have mapped out on a spreadsheet. By 2021, PREP had assessed around 90,000 packaging items; today, more than 1,800 APCO members voluntarily use the tool, evaluating over 620,000 items of packaging at the design stage - before a single unit reaches retail shelves.
PREP’s reach also expanded beyond Australia, with versions developed for the UK and Europe to meet the needs of different markets. In 2018, PREP Design set up a UK version of PREP with OPRL Ltd, the organisation behind the UK’s On-Pack Recycling Label. A European version followed more recently, in response to the EU’s new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU 2025/40), which requires packaging sold in the EU to be designed for recyclability from August 2026. Both extend the same design-stage thinking into markets now facing their own recyclability rules and regulations.
Evidence over guesswork
Perhaps the clearest sign of impact is closer to home. Australia’s major retailers have increasingly required suppliers to submit a PREP report before packaging goes to market. That shift lines up with the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation’s 2025 National Packaging Targets, which commit industry to making all packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable, and to lifting the national plastics packaging recycling rate to 70 per cent. The latest data, covering 2023-24, puts the plastics packaging recycling rate at just 20 per cent, with 86 per cent of packaging currently designed to be reusable, recyclable or compostable. That gap is exactly why retailers have leaned on tools like PREP, phasing out problematic designs in favour of packaging suited to the recycling infrastructure that actually exists.
Three decades into National Recycling Week, it’s worth remembering that progress doesn’t only happen at the kerbside. For us to transition to a circular economy, it has to start earlier, at the drawing board, with the right information in the hands of the people designing the packaging in the first place.
Join the Cycle and celebrate 30 years of National Recycling Week! Find out how you can get involved at nationalrecyclingweek.com.au