Federal government awards $44 million to six recycling and clean energy manufacturers

Pact Group, Toshiba International and 1414 Degrees were among six companies awarded a combined $44 million under the federal government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative on Thursday.

The round of funding was for companies in the Recycling and Clean Energy sector, one of six identified as “National Manufacturing Priorities” by the government. Assistance between $1 million and $20 million was available, covering up to half of project costs. 

The grants were:

• $20 million for Pact Group, for investment in “world leading recycling technology” which would help “create more than 900 jobs and divert around 125,000 tonnes of plastic waste from landfill” annually;
• $9.8 million for Toshiba International, for a “low-cost green hydrogen project”;
• $4.2 million for Mint Biomining, to “help create the world’s first e-waste biorefinery in Australia, to cleanly recover gold, copper, palladium and other valuable metals from the urban mine”;
• $4.8 million for Woolpack Australia, to help open a wool manufacturing, processing and R&D facility for processing sheep wool waste into a sustainable polystyrene packaging alternative;
• $3.5 million for Elexsys R&D to set up its global manufacturing base for power management systems to solve voltage problems; and
• $2.2 million for 1414 Degrees to develop its silicon based thermal energy storage solution.

Pact said that its grant would be put toward “approximately $76 million in new equipment and facility upgrades at 15 of [their] operations” in four states.

“The new technology and equipment will enable Pact to manufacture higher quality recycled packaging products to support our customers meet demands for a higher quantity of locally recycled content in their packaging products,” said the company’s CEO Sanjay Dayal.

“While helping our businesses embrace new technology and scale up their production, this funding will also help to turn more of our waste into valuable products,” said industry minister Angus Taylor in a statement.

The funding follows the release last week of $33 million in grants to seven food manufacturers.

Translation and integration stream grants have been awarded for five of six National Manufacturing Priority sectors so far. The MMI was announced in October 2020 and budgeted at $1.3 billion over four years. 

Picture: Pact

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