Australia turbocharges recycling capacity with billion-dollar modernization fund

12 Aug 2020 --- The Australian Government has committed $190 million (US$134 million) to a new Recycling Modernisation Fund (RMF) that will generate $600 million (US$428 million) of recycling investment and drive a billion-dollar transformation of Australia’s waste and recycling capacity. The RMF is expected to create more than 10,000 jobs and divert more than 10 million tons of waste from landfill. The fund will support innovative infrastructure to sort, process and remanufacture materials such as mixed plastic, paper, tires and glass, with Commonwealth funding contingent on co-funding from industry, states and territories.

Australia’s waste and recycling transformation is strengthened by an additional:

• $35 million (US$25 million) to implement Commonwealth commitments under Australia’s National Waste Policy Action Plan, which sets the direction for waste management and recycling in Australia until 2030.
• $24.6 (US$18 million) on Commonwealth commitments to improve national waste data so it can measure recycling outcomes and track progress against our national waste targets.
• The introduction of new Commonwealth waste legislation enacts the government’s waste export ban and encourages companies to take greater responsibility for the waste they generate, from product design to recycling, remanufacture or disposal (Product Stewardship).

New national strategy
The moves are part of a national strategy to change the way Australia looks at waste, grow its economy, protect the environment and reach a national resource recovery target of 80 percent by 2030.

“As we cease shipping our waste overseas, the waste and recycling transformation will reshape our domestic waste industry, driving job creation and putting valuable materials back into the economy,” anticipates Sussan Ley, Minister for the Environment.Cleanaway’s Eastern Creek Container Sorting Facility – Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, speaks to Cleanaway CEO and Managing Director Vik Bansal (Credit: Cleanaway).

Last year, India banned the import of plastic waste in a development that was expected to hit Australia particularly hard. India was previously one of Australia’s largest waste export destinations.

Australia’s recycling capacity’s unparalleled expansion follows the 2019 National Waste Policy Action Plan, Australia’s government ban on exports of waste plastic, paper, glass and tires, and this year’s first-ever National Plastics Summit.

“Australians need to have faith that the items they place in their kerbside recycling bins will be re-used in roads, carpet, building materials and a range of other essential items. At the same time, we need to stop throwing away tonnes of electronic waste and batteries each year and develop new ways to recycle valuable resources,” Ley adds.

New facility to drive plastics circularity
Waste management specialist Cleanaway, together with Pact Group and Asahi Beverages, has proposed a new facility in Albury/Wodonga that will process up to 28,000 tons or the equivalent of approximately 900 million plastic bottles into flake and food-grade pellets, which will be used as a raw material for making food and beverage packaging.

Cleanaway will provide available feedstock through its collection and sorting network. Pact will provide technical and packaging expertise and Asahi Beverages and Pact will buy the majority of the recycled pellets from the facility to use in its packaging products.

Cleanaway CEO and Managing Director Vik Bansal urged stakeholders in the waste management ecosystem to take more ownership of resource recovery at every step of the value chain. “A genuine closed-loop solution for materials is needed for a domestic recycling economy to thrive. We hope that the fund will encourage waste generators to take more responsibility for the materials they design and use locally sourced raw materials to further drive the domestic economy.”

New domestic markets for recycled products
Earlier in the year, Cleanaway Daniels completed the onshoring of its reusable sharps containers manufacturing. The onshoring was made possible in large part due to the acquisition of ASP Healthcare, which provided Cleanaway with an in-house capability to pelletize and manufacture sharps collectors while increasing the use of recycled material in its operations.The RMF is expected to create more than 10,000 jobs and divert more than 10 million tons of waste from landfill.

“Australian companies are turning plastics and household waste into furniture, decking, fencing and clothing, and we are developing new domestic markets for recycled materials by setting national standards for recycled content in roads and making recycled products a focus of procurement for infrastructure, defence estate management and general government purchasing,” comments Trevor Evans, Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management.

“Companies are already moving with The Pact Group announcing a $500 million (US$357 million) investment in facilities, research and technology, Coca-Cola Amatil committing to new recycling targets, and Pact, Cleanaway and Asahi Beverages establishing a $30 million (US$21 million) recycling facility in Albury,” Evans concludes.

In August 2019, Coca-Cola Oceania and Coca-Cola Amatil announced that all plastic bottles smaller than 1 L and water bottles across all sizes would be made entirely from recycled plastic in New Zealand by the end of the year. These changes would mean that over half of the plastic bottles produced by Coca-Cola Amatil in New Zealand would be made from recycled plastic and include leading brands such as Coca-Cola, Sprite, POWERADE, Fanta, L&P, Kiwi Blue and Pump water.

By Joshua Poole

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