Resource Recovery Facility Expansion and Enhancement Program

Round 5 Resource Recovery Facility Expansion and Enhancement grant recipients were announced in May 2018.

Albury City Council ($445,840):

The Albury Waste Management Centre (AWMC) is the region’s major waste disposal facility servicing over 17,000 people.  With the aim to halve the amount of total waste going to landfill, the AWMC is currently targeting timber and wooden pallets, and mattresses for recycling. This project will install shredder and de-nailing pallet processing equipment to recover over 5,100 additional tonnes of pallet timber per year. The material will be used as an alternative fuel in a local paper mill and mulch within the LGA. The project will also establish a local recovery centre within the AWMC to reclaim steel and textiles from an estimate of 3,200 mattresses per year.

Bulk Recovery Solutions ($900,000):

BRS specialises in recycling wet & dry building waste at a commercial level. BRS has researched and trailed methods to manufacture low grade, “Lego-brick” design concrete blocks using a range of waste products including glass, sand, recycled concrete and timber. This project will provide an opportunity to BRS to build a recycling plant to produce the waste material blend to manufacture the blocks. The plant design is unique and includes a crusher, several screens and a materials handling solution to convey and blend different waste streams. At full capacity the plant will divert over 45,000 tonnes of waste from landfill per annum.

Elouera Association (Inc) ($117,000):

This project will add new feeding, sorting and conveying equipment of comingled waste materials into the exiting waste sorting process. Major pieces of equipment include two new in feed Hopper systems, a bouncing belt, a magnetic conveyor and a forklift rotating arm. The enhancement of the sorting facility will divert from landfill 1 tonne of comingled waste per day. Elouera Association will also create 3-5 local jobs for workers with special needs in regional Young.

Lismore City Council ($350,000):

In addition to PET and HDPE Lismore City Council has identified an opportunity to include the separation of Polypropylene (PP) in their current waste sorting process. This project will install a new optical sorting machine in Council’s Materials Recovery Facility to separate and recover PP from the mixed plastics waste stream. It is projected that Council will sell over 600 tonnes of raw PP per annum as a high value commodity in the local market.

NSW Glass Recyclers Pty Ltd ($275,000):

NSW Glass Recyclers will expand its glass recycling processing plant to widen the range of products offered to the market while diverting from landfill nearly 3,500 tonnes of glass fines.  The expansion includes a new grinder system capable of processing glass cullet to finer specifications (0.08 – 0.4 micrometres). The resulting fine glass particles will be used in the manufacture of filtration systems, brick additives, and abrasive and insulation materials.

Shoalhaven City Council ($348,754):

Shoalhaven City Council (SSC) have improved waste separation operations at their West Nowra and Ulladalla waste management facilities. As a result, the amount of materials recovered has doubled and SSC do not have the extra capacity to recover and transport this additional. This project will expand and enhance Nowra and Ulladalla’s waste management facilities operations by installing the necessary infrastructure to facilitate the processing, consolidation and financially viable transport of soft plastics, polystyrene and cardboard. SSC projects that through this project over 300 tonnes of plastics and cardboard per annum can be recovered and diverted from landfill.

SUEZ Recycling & Recovery Pty Ltd ($260,000):

SUEZ’s Spring Farm Resource Recovery Centre includes a Material Recycling Facility (MRF) that processes 35,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of co-mingled recyclable waste from the south west Sydney metropolitan area. This project will involve the installation of an improved optical sorter in the MRF to increase the diversion of HDPE and mixed plastics from landfill by around 1,734 tpa initially, scaling up to around 2,275 tpa and diverting over 20,000 additional tonnes of plastic materials from landfill over its lifespan.

Weston Aluminium ($1,000,000):

Weston Aluminium has identified an opportunity to expand its current facility to incinerate medical and hazardous waste. Currently, there are very limited disposal and management options of this type of waste stream.  The project will install thermal processing equipment that will be integrated within the northern end of the existing plant. The expansion of the facility will process 8,000 tonnes per annum of medical and hazardous waste, and divert over 90% of this from landfill.

The Resource Recovery Facility Expansion and Enhancement grants program has been incorporated into Round 2 of the Product Improvement Program. Projects that were previously eligible to apply for Resource Recovery Facility Expansion and Enhancement grants can apply for funding from the Product Improvement Program.

Purpose

This program aimed to increase the amount of waste materials recycled in NSW by accelerating and stimulating investment in recycling infrastructure at existing licensed recycling facilities. The program aimed at increasing resource recovery to meet the NSW 2021 recycling targets.

The program was designed to fund resource recovery facilities that could increase recycling of waste materials from households and businesses in a cost-effective manner.

Priority was given to proposals that expanded and enhanced infrastructure and plant for:

  • recovery of recyclables from sorted and unsorted waste from business, industry and households
  • processing and stabilisation of residual business, industry and household waste
  • reuse, recycling and reprocessing of recyclable materials from business, industry and households such as
    • paper, glass, metals
    • tyres, rubber
    • wood/timber including engineered timbers
    • copper chrome arsenate treated timber and other treated timbers
    • plastics
    • cardboard and consumer packaging
    • plasterboard and other construction and demolition wastes (excluding asbestos and contaminated waste).

This program did not fund new recycling facilities – the Major Resource Recovery Infrastructure grants program provides support for new infrastructure.

More information

For more information contact the Waste and Recycling Infrastructure Unit by phone on (02) 9995 6920 or email infrastructure.grants@epa.nsw.gov.au.

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