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. This will help Australia to develop an advanced recycling supply chain that will turn soft plastic waste back into 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 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 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 Federal Government is increasing recycling capacity in Australia by more than a million tonnes every year while creating over 3,000 jobs, including over 600 in South Australia.
The innovative 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.