The Federal and New South Wales have announced 22 new recycling projects across metropolitan and regional NSW as part of a $600 million national rollout of recycling infrastructure.
Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley said the new NSW projects will be joint funded.
“The joint funding component between the Commonwealth and NSW for these projects is $24 million, generating industry investment of $59 million,” Ley said.
“This is about easing pressure on our environment by recycling more materials including plastics, tyres, glass, cardboard and even coffee cups, and importantly it is about creating jobs and economic investment.”
The Remanufacture NSW program will provide co-funding for waste and recycling infrastructure to support the resource recovery sectors response to Australia’s waste export ban.
Funding will be offered through two streams, infrastructure, and trials. In this round, Remanufacture NSW offered funding of up to $35 million through the two streams.
Stream one offered co-funding for the establishment of new recycling infrastructure and equipment, whereas stream two offered co-funding for innovative trials to address waste export ban materials.
Stream one has awarded $22,036,757 to 18 projects, with stream two providing $2,117,325 in funding for four projects.
Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management Trevor Evans said that the range of projects selected for funding cover the gamut of recycling materials and remanufacturing uses and introduce the latest innovations in recycling technology.
“We are investing in everything from new and upgraded material recycling facilities in regional areas, to mobile plastic from e-waste processing facilities,” he said.
“The materials to be recycled are those impacted by Australia’s world leading ban on the export of waste glass, plastic, tyres and paper which are gradually being phased in until mid-2024.”
The projects are expected to increase the states recycling capacity by an estimated 120,000 tonnes annually.
Outcomes for key projects which received funding include:
- Establishment of a new $40m regional Materials Recovery Facility to recycle waste glass, plastic, tyres and paper and cardboard in Newcastle.
- Five mobile plastic processing facilities across Sydney to process almost 5000 tonnes of plastic each year.
- New state-of-the-art infrastructure in Erskine Park to reprocess 3200 tonnes of used tyres for use in road construction and manufactured rubber-based products.
- Expand a Wetherill Park plant that turns paperboard beverage containers collected through container deposit schemes and coffee cups collected through the ‘Simply Cups’ recycling program into sustainable building products as a substitute for plaster and particle boards.
- Upgrading glass processing in western Sydney to process an additional 50,000 tonnes of glass each year that will increase the kerbside glass recovery from 53 percent to 60 per cent.
- Upgrading moulding equipment at Sulo’s Somersby facility to recycle old kerbside bins and bottle caps back into mobile garbage bins, creating circular kerbside bins.
- Expanding Australian Recycled Plastics facility at Narrabri to allow both PET and HDPE/PP lines to run simultaneously and at full capacity, processing up 9300 tonnes per annum.
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