Remanufacture NSW grants awarded and project summaries

Stream 1 - Infrastructure

Auslink International Pty Ltd

Increased capacity for higher order plastics in NSW - $116,140

This project will facilitate the diversion and reprocessing of both low and high-density polyethylene (LDPE and HDPE) waste plastics in New South Wales. Auslink will use shredding and granulating technology to produce single polymer recyclate, increasing the plastics reprocessing capacity in New South Wales. The high-grade product will replace unprocessed single polymer baled plastics exports and develop markets for the materials as either virgin material replacement or supply to remanufacturers. The project will increase the capacity of local manufacturers to use recyclate in their production lines. The project findings may inform future upscale plans and site development.

Delta Plastic Pty Ltd

Shredding machine for HDPE - $218,000

This project involves the commissioning of a shredding machine to enable Delta Plastic to process rigid high-density polyethylene (HDPE) through its current manufacturing facility and produce recycled high-density polyethylene pellets. The project will help fill a gap that currently exists for infrastructure to process rigid high-density polyethylene in the Sydney metropolitan region, where both the supply of waste high-density polyethylene and the demand for recycled pellets by end users exists in the Sydney metropolitan region.

Disruptive Packaging Pty Ltd

Project Uniqcorn - $1,405,287

This project will establish a manufacturing and recycling facility for the packaging material Uniqcor® in Australia. Uniqcor® is an alternative to regular waxed corrugated cardboard. Disruptive Packaging is the inventor and offshore manufacturer of Uniqcor® and currently recovers Uniqcor® from customer sites and waste streams in Australia. The plant will convert the recovered material to resin which will enable local manufacturing and will result in thousands of tonnes of polystyrene (EPS) and waxed cardboard being diverted from landfill. This facility will ensure all Uniqcor® material collected for reprocessing can be used at 100% yield to produce new products.

Plasmar NewGen

New processing capacity to recycle waste plastics into products - $1,092,050

This project will increase Plasmar NewGen's processing capacity to recycle more plastic waste and expand current end markets for recycled products. The project will immediately address the plastic export ban challenges and infrastructure gaps in New South Wales and reduce the amount of plastic currently ending up in landfill. The project involves the purchase of equipment to shred incoming plastic, leading to more efficient processing and manufacturing of end products. The organisation manufactures long lasting and 100% recycled plastic products, providing products that can be used by councils, industry and communities across New South Wales and Australia.

Re.Group Pty Ltd

Chinderah Materials Recovery Facility Upgrade - $2,881,150

The Chinderah Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) processes a significant proportion of municipal recyclables generated in far northern New South Wales. Materials recovery facility upgrades will contribute to improved quality of outputs from the facility to ensure strict specifications for the export and remanufacturing of recyclable materials are met. Facility improvements involve the addition of an old-corrugated cardboard (OCC) screen and 6 optical sorting units to enable the facility to separate mixed plastic and fibre inputs into polymer type and fractions respectively, with reduced contamination rates. Facility improvements will also reduce residual refuse output of the facility, therefore reducing the amount of material disposed to landfill.

SAMI Bitumen Technologies Pty Ltd

Low viscosity crumbed rubber plant - $2,128,651

Sami Bitumen Technologies' will develop a dedicated low viscosity crumb rubber manufacturing facility to increase its capacity to produce quality crumb rubber bitumen. Crumbed rubber in spray seal surfaces increases road life and durability, while recycling materials which are otherwise sent to landfill. SAMI Bitumen Technologies, a major supplier of bitumen products for the roads industry in Australia, has developed a low viscosity crumbed rubber bitumen that eliminates safety and quality issues. This would allow the processing of an addition 3 million tyres over 10 years to be used on New South Wales roads.

TrendPac Plastics

HDPE reprocessing facility - $3,000,000

TrendPac is an Australian owned business established in 1963. It manufactures home care and personal care products (including the plastic packaging the products are sold in) at its facility on the New South Wales Central Coast. Its customers, including ALDI, Coles and Woolworths, wish to increase the recycled content of their products' packaging. TrendPac will construct a recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) flaking, washing and pelletising plant which will process over 3,000 tonnes per year of currently exported post-consumer high-density polyethylene from material recovery facilities (MRFs). The recycled high-density polyethylene resin will be used instead of virgin high-density polyethylene in its container manufacturing activities.

Stream 2 - Trials

Egans Asset Management Pty Ltd

Packaging to partitions - $94,650

In its supply chain and usual business activities in New South Wales, Egans encounters significant amounts of single use cardboard that are subject to the waste export ban. Egans will trial a project where the cardboard is cost-effectively reused, repurposed and recycled to manufacture workstation partitions, a high value item. If successful, the trial is designed to be readily scaled up to full implementation and integration into Egan's other circular economy activities.

Max Mattresses & Furniture Pty Ltd

Recycling foam waste to manufacture into new products - $161,150

This project recycles plastics from foam waste and remanufactures it into recycled crushed foam inserts, reducing waste to landfill and overall impact on the environment. The organisation will produce new bedding and homeware products such as cushions, beanbags and pillows using 90% recycled materials. Currently, only one other company manages its own recycling foam program in Australia. This project will provide greater local recycling capacity, resulting in increased competition while creating jobs, reducing waste to landfill and creating sustainable change to protect the environment and contribute to the New South Wales circular economy.

Stream 1 - Infrastructure

7 Star Tyres Pty Ltd

Tyre processing expansion project - $745,184

This project will install infrastructure to manage waste tyres which are subject to the export ban. The project focuses on introducing shredding and rasping equipment to process waste tyres at a facility in Sefton to produce tyre shred and recover steel. Rubber shred will be used as feedstock for crumbing at a partner business in India. The facility will process up to 8500 tonnes of waste tyres per year and support New South Wales' move towards a circular economy by importing rubber crumb back to Australia for sale to the domestic market. The site will create 5 new jobs in the first year of operation, with 12 new jobs at full production.

Brickwood Holdings Pty Ltd

Blacktown food grade recycled HDPE integration - $553,608

Brickwood manufactures milk and juice bottles in its Blacktown facility for purchase by major Australian food producers. Brickwood will purchase new gravimetric weigh-scale blenders and granulators for its high-density polyethylene (HDPE) manufacturing facility. This infrastructure upgrade will enable Brickwood to introduce up to 30% of recycled HDPE into their manufacturing process, thus reducing the reliance on virgin resources. This project will fuel demand for recycled materials, divert waste from landfill and contribute to local manufacturing capacity while delivering infrastructure for the local circular economy in New South Wales.

City of Newcastle Council

Materials processing facility - $5,000,000

There is no Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) operating in the Hunter region at this time. Council will develop a facility at their Summerhill Waste Management Centre (SWMC) as part of a regional solution.

Coffs Harbour Paper and Oil

Coffs Region Plastics Recycling - $636,000

The Coffs Region Plastics Recycling project will recover industrial, agricultural and retail plastic waste from landfill for reuse in new plastic product manufacturing. Plastics will be collected from businesses including shopping centres, warehouses, showrooms and large farms in the Coffs Harbour area, transported to an upgraded recycling facility in Coffs Harbour and processed for remanufacturing. The project will complement the existing kerbside and container deposit schemes (CDS) collection systems to retrieve high volume high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and polypropylene plastic (PP) polymers. The project will also create new jobs in emerging circular economy processes in this growing New South Wales regional area.

Gilgandra Shire Council

Enhancement of the Gilgandra MRF - $143,500

Gilgandra Shire Council operates a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) at the Gilgandra Waste Facility. The MRF provides an employment opportunity to support employees who hand sort the co-mingled recycling from both Gilgandra and Bogan Shire Council areas. Council will purchase new baling equipment to enhance the structural integrity of the product bales, improve WHS in the facility and contributing to overall increased product quality output. The project also involves construction of new sheds to store the baled product.

Kurrajong Waratah

Kurrajong MRF upgrade to increase circular economy outputs - $520,810

Kurrajong Recycling will upgrade the existing Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to increase the quality of its output to support a circular economy for glass and plastic in New South Wales. Upgrading the CDS, Glass and Plastic sorting lines and changing the material in-feed to floor level will result in greater efficiency, increased capacity and higher quality outputs suitable for local downstream reprocessors and local use of materials in the construction and reprocessing industry. Additionally, the disc screen, eddy-current and perforator will be upgraded to increase the capacity and viability of the facility and ensure that Kurrajong Recycling, a social enterprise, can continue to operate into the future.

Shoalhaven City Council

Glass, plastic and textile remanufacturing MICROfactorie - $500,000

Shoalhaven City Council, in partnership with the University of NSW Sustainable Materials Research & Technology (SMaRT) Centre, will establish a MICROfactorieTM which re-manufactures glass and mattresses into green ceramics used as kitchen benches, table tops, tiles, furnishings and other applications and re-manufactures plastics into filament for 3D printing purposes. This facility will be the first of its kind established for council use to promote a circular economy and remanufacturing in the Shoalhaven and Illawarra region.

Sulo MGB Australia Pty Ltd

Upgrade moulding centre for mobile waste containers - $2,083,606

This project will upgrade Sulo's waste container moulding equipment located in Somersby. The new moulding machines will increase recycling content in mobile garbage bins (MGBs) by up to 80%, boosting this from an average of 30% and more than doubling Sulo's demand for locally recycled high volume high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The plastics targeted as part of this project will be sourced from end-of-life MGB bodies, creating a true circular economy solution, as well as from plastic bottle and bottle cap material from kerbside collections.

Traco Pty Ltd

Sydney tyre recycling and rubber products plant capacity upgrades - $343,366

Traco operates a tyre recycling plant with a current production capacity of 5000 tonnes per annum. The operation manufactures value-added products from tyres including rubber crumb, rubber buffings and rubber powder that have various industrial uses, a large quantity of which are currently imported. With this funding, the tyre recycling facility will be upgraded to enable the production of up to 20,000 tonnes per annum, creating new jobs, products for use in local manufacturing, diverting tyres from landfill and enabling the greater use of tyre resources within the region.

Tyrecycle Pty Ltd

Tyrecycle New South Wales OTR processing plant - $2,888,915

This project introduces additional 'state of the art' infrastructure to the Erskine Park facility capable of processing waste Off The Road (OTR) tyres into a high value crumbed product for use in road construction and various manufactured rubber-based products. The project will fill infrastructure gaps in New South Wales with key outcomes, including diverting an expected 3200 tonnes per year from on-site disposal, landfill or overseas exports. The project will cost an estimated $5.78 million, employ a further 6 staff at the site, and provide further employment across the supply chain, including engineering and maintenance contracts.

Upcycled Building Materials Australia Pty Ltd

Save Board Australia - $1,739,128

The Save Board facility will reprocess liquid paperboard beverage containers collected through the container deposit scheme and coffee cups collected through the 'Simply Cups' recycling program. Together with supplementary material from industrial processes, these items will be used to manufacture sustainable building products to substitute plaster board, particle board, and oriented strand board (OSB). The Save Board process uses heat and compression to bond materials, eliminating the need for glues or other chemical additives, to produce a clean product with zero volatile organic compounds (VOCs), suitable for use in homes and commercial buildings.

Valley Industries Limited

Recycled plastics – capacity expansion - $422,500

This project will facilitate diversion of 600 tonnes of plastic waste from landfill annually. Establishing an end-to-end manufacturing plant increases our capacity to recover waste materials currently subject to the waste export ban. Hard plastic waste will be recycled into concrete bar chairs, while soft plastics will be processed using specialist baling equipment and prepared for manufacturing into end products by another organisation as part of the Farm Waste Recovery stewardship program. The expansion will generate economic activity by creating jobs in the Mid Coast local government area and establishing a domestic supply chain for products currently reliant on imported waste product.

Vinidex Pty Limited

Vinidex recycling equipment upgrade - $762,000

This project will enable Vinidex to source and process an additional 3000 tonnes of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and high volume high-density polyethylene (HDPE) recyclate materials needed to make modifications to their existing facilities to improve the quality of recut materials generated at the site plus improve the throughput facility to process more materials by reducing the size of the feedstock from external sources. This will enable Vinidex to utilise the current waste stream going to landfill and at the same time reduce carbon emissions and produce a fully recyclable product. The installed processing capability of the plant will be circa 7000 tonnes.

VIP Packaging

Recycled content for HDPE packaging - $492,200

VIP Packaging will install 15 blending machines which will allow them to incorporate a target of 30% recycled post-consumer high volume high-density polyethylene (HDPE) into new packaging for industrial and personal care packaging products such as laundry bottles and hair care bottles.

Visy Industries Australia Pty. Ltd

Glass recovery maximisation project - $2,546,758

Visy will increase the capacity of their Penrith facility to process an additional 50,000 tonnes of glass a year, up to a total of 200,000 tonnes – enough to process the majority of New South Wales' recyclable glass. Upon completion, this project will increase the current recovery of kerbside recycled glass from 53% to 60%, keeping an additional 4500 tonnes of furnace ready cullet in the circular economy every year.

Stream 2 - Trials

Allmould Plastics Pty Ltd

Full circular project - $179,500

Allmould Plastics' pilot circular program collected single-use polypropylene waste from hospitals and incorporated granulated, recycled plastic into their manufacturing processes. They will now expand this project, trialling a mobile granulator to collect polypropylene, granulate on-site and transport to their manufacturing facility with minimal environmental impact. The addition of an extrusion line will increase the amount of reprocessed plastic that can be used in manufacturing from 20% to 100%. The project will explore colour sorting processes to increase the range of end products in which reprocessed plastic can be used. Benefits include reduced landfill, job growth and direct substitution of imported raw materials.

Vinidex Pty Limited

Corrugated conduit made from PVC recyclate - $910,000

This project will trial the inclusion of a significant proportion of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) recyclate into corrugated PVC pipe. This product will meet infrastructure customer needs in electrical and communications, combined with key environmental advantages. It will include recycled export banned PVC waste materials to a specific quality specification in a material efficient lower embodied carbon product. This engineered product can also be recycled at the end of its service life, further reducing environmental impact and improving circular economy benefit for decades to come.

VIP Packaging

Pail rationalisation and incorporation of recycled content trial - $177,825

This trial aims to commercialise recycled content in the industrial pail market in New South Wales. This aligns with the commitment of a minimum of 25% recycled content in all plastic packaging produced by 2025. Different resin sources, operating parameters and performance criteria will be trialled and analysed to determine the most effective outcomes while working with key customers to develop a commercially viable product. Recycled content levels will also be trialled to determine the maximum attainable levels while still meeting key customer criteria.

Viscount Rotational Mouldings Pty Ltd

Rotomoulding with post-consumer plastics - $850,000

This trial aims to utilise post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic in rotational moulded products. The trial will explore the supply chain for suitable recycled plastics, develop specific plastics blends appropriate for the rotational moulding manufacturing process and make infrastructure products capable of meeting New South Wales' specifications. The trial will focus on the incorporation of PCR plastics in rotational moulded sound abatement walls which contain 75% recycled material. These products will be 100% recyclable after their 40-year lifespan and remain within the circular economy.