More than 14,000 tonnes of soft plastics will be diverted from South Australian landfills annually, thanks to a $20 million investment in advanced recycling technology by the Australian Government.
Recycling Plastics Australia in Kilburn will clean and purify soft plastics such as shopping bags, chip packets and food wrappers to create feedstock for new soft plastic packaging. The project will deliver 45 jobs.
Peter Gregg, Chair, Recycling Plastics Australia, said the funding will help the Kilburn site become the prominent soft-plastic recycling processor in the country. Materials recycled at Kilburn will be sold into local and global packaging markets.
“Recycling Plastics Australia has a proud history leading the circular economy by recycling plastics that are difficult to process,” Gregg said.
Delivered in partnership with the South Australian Government, the project is among the first announced under the new Recycling Modernisation Fund Plastics Technology stream.
The $60 million stream funds solutions that increase Australia’s recycling and recovery rates for hard to recycle plastics, enables collection schemes to be scaled up over time, and helps drive Australia’s transition to a safe circular economy.
The South Australian government has been taking action to ban more unnecessary single-use plastic with bans on all soft plastic shopping bags and single-use plastic, including coffee cups, from 1 September 2024.
Deputy Premier of South Australia, Susan Close applauded the Commonwealth for acknowledging both the need for the soft plastic recycling service, and the strength of South Australia’s existing resource recovery and recycling industry.
“Scaling up equipment and personnel to tackle the challenge of soft plastic recycling is the first step into rebuilding the infrastructure we need for an effective supermarket ‘take back’ scheme,” Close said.
The Recycling Modernisation Fund is a national initiative expanding Australia’s capacity to sort, process and remanufacture glass, plastic, tyres, paper and cardboard. When combined with co-investment from all states and industry, the Recycling Modernisation Fund will give a $1 billion boost to Australian recycling.
The Federal Government is also supporting soft plastics recycling by improving packaging design through new national packaging laws. These laws will require packaging to be designed to be recovered, reused, recycled, and reprocessed safely in line with circular economy principles.
The Federal Government is increasing recycling capacity in Australia by more than a million tonnes every year while creating more than 3000 jobs, including over 600 in South Australia.
The Kilburn project has been announced during Plastic Free July – a campaign that appeals to all Australians to do their bit to reduce plastic pollution and waste.
For more information, visit: www.dcceew.gov.au
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