Corflutes – for the last five weeks, they’ve been almost impossible to avoid.
The plastic campaign signs appeared almost instantly throughout Australia’s 150 electorates when the 2025 federal election was announced. Now that the election is concluded with Labor achieving a clear victory, these signs are set to disappear for a few more years.
What happens to them next, however, depends entirely on the person whose face is on the sign.
Dr Monique Ryan, the Independent Member for Kooyong, managed to recover and send approximately 2000kg of materials back to Corex for recycling following the 2022 federal election. She confirmed to 9news that she will be repeating the effort this year.
“Sustainability is a critical aspect of our campaign, and we have taken extensive measures in our planning process to ensure that all materials are properly recycled after the election,” stated Ryan’s media team.
Some local councils also offer to recycle corflutes through a specialist waste stream, details of which can typically be found on the council website.
As with genuine Corflute, it’s up to individual candidates to pursue recycling options for corflutes made by other manufacturers.
Candidates who don’t recycle their corflutes can send them to landfill, reuse them in future campaigns, or find more unique ways to repurpose them.
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ACT Labor told 9news.com.au it donates corflutes to schools, community groups, and sporting groups, where they’re repurposed for arts and crafts and treatment of wombat mange, among other uses.
Some are donated to the National Library of Australia, others are kept for future campaigns, and some are recycled through the ACT government’s recycling program.
A member of One Nation told 9news.com.au that he has been donating used corflute signage to glaziers to use as padding for glass panes for several years.
