Victoria gets federal funding boost for plastic recycling and remanufacturing

The Federal government has provided a $15.6 million investment to help accelerate Victoria’s advanced recycling and plastic manufacturing industry.

The funding is part of the government’s $60 million Recycling Modernisation Fund, a national initiative expanding Australia’s capacity to sort, process and remanufacture glass, plastic, tyres, paper and cardboard.

Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek said this funding is supporting new recycling infrastructure, helping to solve challenges with plastic waste and stop soft plastics from going to landfill.

“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. This is great for the environment, but it’s also great for the economy and jobs growth,” Plibersek said.

Three Victoria-based plastic recycling and manufacturing companies shared the latest investment tranche, enabling a first-of-its-kind agricultural plastics development.

About $6m in funding was provided to the Pro-Pac Group to expand its facility for turning recycled feedstock into soft plastics. The factory is aiming to produce up to 11,000 tonnes of plastic packaging with 30% recycled content annually, creating 14 new jobs.

Pro Pac Group CEO John Cerini said this “project furthers Pro-Pac’s commitment to playing a leading role in the circular economy for soft plastics.”

“With the government’s support, this investment will enable us to take stewardship of the products we produce and with the incoming recycled content mandate for packaging, we will be able to provide brand owners with locally manufactured packaging solutions,” Cerini said.

“Pro-Pac will convert Australian soft plastic waste into recycled content products onshore, giving a fully circular Australian solution.”

Altona-based Naula won more than $5m in funding for advanced processing and sorting of up to 32,000 tonnes of plastic products annually, refining them into new packaging and food-grade plastics, creating more than 60 new roles in the process.

Naula founder Nassib Thoumi said this investment from the government will have a positive environmental impact.

“This grant is going to mean we can build a facility that will prevent 32,000 tonnes per annum of hard-to-recycle soft plastics from going into landfill,” Thoumi said.

“We will fill the gap in the plastics recycling supply chain and circular economy for these plastics in Australia.”

Sustainable Plastic Solutions received more than $4 million to install recycling technology to process an additional 8,000 tonnes each year of agricultural plastics into resins for remanufacturing back into original products.

Sustainable Plastic Solutions CEO Matt Nettleton said the fund is helping the company break new ground in recycling and manufacturing.

“The Circular Agricultural Plastic Recycling and Remanufacture in Australia project will be the first of its kind; taking hard-to-recycle end-of-life plastics and turning them into high-end prime/virgin material replacement,” Nettleton said.

“This true closed-loop recycling solution will see an additional 8,000 tonnes of agricultural waste plastic recycled and remanufactured annually.”

On the back of these investments, the government is also developing new national packaging laws, which will require packaging to be designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed safely.