NSW government "actively considering" four-bin system, says Matt Kean in Albury

Victorian councils are progressively rolling out a four-bin, colour-coded waste and recycling system from this year with most households to be involved by 2030.

And NSW is "actively considering" four bins, NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean said during a visit to Plastic Forests in North Albury.

"The more that we can sort our waste, the cleaner the waste streams are, the cheaper it is for guys like this to process the end product," he said.

"The NSW government's just about to release its 20 year waste strategy and creating circular economies like Plastic Forest is doing is going to be a key part."

Four bin systems aim to segregate glass, which can become a major contaminant in commingled recycling bins if it breaks.

Plastic Forests has major partners like REDcycle supplying soft plastics, which cannot be recycled through Albury-Wodonga's current bin system.

Mr Kean agreed there was more room for collection of the resource domestically.

"Absolutely, we generate about 500,000 tonnes of soft plastics right across the country every year and we only recycle about 20,000 tonnes of that, so we've got a long way to go," he said.

"We need to turn our waste into resource."

A range of plastics from postal packaging to silage film goes into products created at the North Albury factory.

Fence posts made by Plastic Forests with 250 soft plastic pieces each ended up in two bushfire-affected NSW farms, one at Tumbarumba, through a $300,000 grant from Coles.

Plastic Forests managing director David Hodge told Minister Kean he could help ensure levels of government utilise recycled resources such as the wheel stop they produce.

"It's a great thing to use, because every one of these is 10 kilograms of plastic - if you're doing a carpark with 500 wheel stops in it, you're using a lot of plastics," he said.

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Albury MP Justin Clancy said businesses like Plastic Forests and Geofabrics didn't want or need cash handouts.

"It's growing business through helping to identify markets such as local councils, government or even the retail market - it would be great to have garden edging that's coming from Albury rather than a container from overseas," he said.

"The Return and Earn scheme that NSW has been doing for several years now, which we're yet to see in Victoria, demonstrates purity of product is important for manufacturers."