More than 14,000 tonnes of soft plastics will be diverted from South Australian landfills every year, 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.
This project, delivered in partnership with the South Australian government, 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 and more unnecessary single-use plastic with bans on all soft plastic shopping bags and single-use plastic including coffee cups from 1 September this year,” says SA Deputy Premier Susan Close.
“I applaud the Commonwealth for this significant investment which acknowledges both the need for this service, and the strength of SA’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 is essential.”
Other federal support
The Australian 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.
Nationally, the government is increasing recycling capacity in Australia by more than a million tonnes every year while creating over 3000 jobs, including over 600 in SA.
“It’s great to see state governments committed to getting soft plastics out of landfill and working with industry to see a circular economy for soft plastics in Australia,” says Australian Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek.
“This benefits the environment and the economy. For every job in landfill, there are three jobs in recycling.
“The Albanese government is committed to working with states and territories to better manage waste and increase recycling capacity, including for soft plastics, and better protect our environment for future generations.”