Case Study: Australia Post achieves major packaging environmental reductions with Selerant's Ecodex LCA by adopting 80% recycled LDPE satchels

Australia Post - Customer Case Study

Australia Post, Australia’s national postal and delivery service, needed to identify packaging options that minimise environmental impacts across their full life cycle as part of its 2020–2022 Group Corporate Responsibility Plan. To get a scientific, standards‑based answer, Australia Post engaged Selerant to run a streamlined Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using Selerant’s ISO‑certified Ecodex tool, comparing a virgin LDPE satchel with four alternatives across five indicators (GHG emissions, non‑renewable resource use, freshwater consumption, land use and ecosystem quality).

Selerant’s Ecodex LCA showed that satchels with recycled‑content LDPE — notably 80% recycled content, which met Australia Post’s strength requirements — delivered substantial reductions in GHG emissions, non‑renewable resource use and freshwater consumption compared with virgin LDPE (100% recycled failed strength tests, while compostable and cardboard options raised other impacts). Acting on Selerant’s findings, Australia Post trialled 80% recycled LDPE satchels in December 2019, rolled them out across its core range, reduced virgin LDPE to under 5% of its satchel range and committed to have all plastic satchels made from recycled content by the end of 2021.

Australia Post