Up to 48,000 tonnes of recycling collected from yellow kerbside bins across South Australia is processed annually by the Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority (NAWMA). About half of those materials are post-consumer paper and cardboard.
The completion of a $15 million Fibre Polishing Plant at Edinburgh, in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, is ensuring that all post-consumer paper and cardboard is recycled to the highest possible standard while unlocking a long-term revenue stream.
Toby Terlet, NAWMA Chief Executive Officer, describes it as future-proofing recycling.
“The plant not only meets important environmental policy shifts but also unlocks a long-term revenue stream and reduces costs for our constituent and client councils,” he says.
Following a change in Federal Government regulations, which came into effect on 1 July 2024, recycled paper and cardboard can only be exported if they meet strict international trade guidelines – two per cent contamination for paper and one per cent for cardboard.
The removal of contaminants from paper and cardboard is known as ‘polishing’.
The NAWMA plant has the capacity to process 31,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard collected from kerbside yellow-lid recycling bins each year. Reducing contamination to less than two per cent in mixed paper, and one per cent for cardboard, the plant will enable NAWMA to sell the materials interstate and overseas to be reprocessed into paper-based packaging products.
“Materials can be polished in Edinburgh to remove contaminants, then sold interstate and overseas where they’ll be used to make the paper-based shopping bags and packaging we know and use almost every day,” Toby says.
“By turning recycling into revenue, we’re reducing the need for forest-sourced paper and ensuring materials will not go to landfill because they don’t meet strict export guidelines.
“This plant not only helps future-proof NAWMA’s operations but also sets a new benchmark for the resource recovery sector and reflects our focus on developing strategies and processes to transition to a circular economy.”
NAWMA is a regional subsidiary formed under the Local Government Act (SA) 1999 to provide best practice waste management and resource recovery services.
It receives and processes material for a range of clients, including businesses, industry and regional South Australian councils, with its services predominantly being for its three constituent councils – City of Salisbury, City of Playford, and the Town of Gawler.
When the change in paper and cardboard recycling regulations were first announced in 2020, NAWMA partnered with Green Industries SA to explore the business case for developing infrastructure that would support the ongoing, viable recycling of paper and cardboard.
NAWMA secured co-funding totalling nearly $8 million towards the project from the South Australian Government, through Green Industries SA, and the Federal Government, via the Recycling Modernisation Fund.
Paper and cardboard recycled at the Fibre Polishing Plant comes from NAWMA’s three constituent councils and nearly 30 other metropolitan and regional councils in South Australia.
Using world-class technology, paper and cardboard travel through an enclosed conveyor system where optical sensors detect contaminants and use high-pressure air jets to remove them from the paper and cardboard, which are then separated and individually baled.
The main contaminants removed are soft plastics, such as chip packets and plastic bags, and textiles.
Other common contaminants – general waste, polystyrene, nappies, electronics and batteries– are removed in earlier stages of the sorting process at NAWMA’s Material Recovery Facility.
Toby says the plant not only helps transform South Australia’s recycling capability but continues a drive to create jobs through advanced remanufacturing in the northern suburbs.
More than 100 jobs were created during the plant’s construction. The plant and NAWMA’s Material Recovery Facility employs 40 employees. The plant will operate five days per week, with two shifts daily.
For more information, visit: www.nawma.sa.gov.au
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