Australia: Focused on NetZero
Austrade (Australian Trade and Investment Commission), the Australian Government’s international trade promotion and investment attraction agency, invited investors to attend the country on its way to cutting domestic carbon emissions. Australia also has ambitious targets to increase waste recovery and recycling rates as part of this goal.
By 2030, Australia aims for a resource recovery rate of about 80 percent from all waste streams. That would equate to an extra 15 million tons of material every year, the agency referred to the country’s National Waste Policy Action Plan 2022, an annexure to the 2019 National Waste Policy Action Plan (dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/national-waste-policy-action-plan-annexure-2022.pdf) in an earlier version of its homepage.
According to the National Waste Report 2022, published in December of that year, during the financial year 2020-21 (1 July to 30 June) Australia generated an estimated 75.8 million tons (Mt) of waste. This amount included “25.2 Mt of building and demolition materials, 14.4 Mt of organics, 12.0 Mt of ash, 7.4 Mt of hazardous waste (mainly contaminated soil), 5.8 Mt of paper and cardboard, 5.7 Mt of metals and 2.6 Mt of plastics”. That was meant to be equivalent to 2.95 tons (t) per person regarding the estimated population of nearly 26 million.
In 2020–21, 28.0 Mt of waste were disposed of, representing 37 percent of waste generated, the authors of the National Waste Report described the situation. At the same time, Australia’s resource recovery rate (including waste reuse, recycling and energy recovery) was 63 percent, while the recycling rate reached 60 percent. “The national trends in recovery and recycling rates are upwards.”
In the period under review, approximately 45.4 Mt of materials were received or processed, up from 40.1 Mt in 2016–17, the information said. The four largest fractions of recycling, making up 84 percent of the total, were building and demolition materials (20.2 Mt), organics (6.8 Mt), ash (6.0 Mt), and metals (5.0 Mt). C&D (construction and demolition) represented the largest source stream (50 percent) followed by C&I (commercial and industrial) including ash (38 percent) and MSW (municipal solid waste) with a share of 13 percent. As stated in the National Waste Report 2022, Australia has regulated its exports of glass, plastics and tires and will regulate paper and cardboard from July 2024. “The rules generally aim to ensure that exports are ready for use as a product and do not require further processing or cause harm to environmental or human health overseas.” Combined with import controls imposed by key Asian trading partners, the rules had “significantly affected the quantities of some waste-derived materials exported, as well as the processing undertaken prior to export”. Despite these changes, the total exports of waste and recovered materials have remained at about the same level (about 4.5 million tons per year) since the financial year 2011–12.
Infrastructure
Significant investment is occurring in Australian waste and resource recovery infrastructure, with outlays from the Commonwealth, states, territories and industry, the National Waste Report 2022 informed. As of 2022, a major area of development was linked to the Australian Government’s regulation of the export of some materials not suitably processed for recycling. Glass, plastic and tires were already regulated – paper and cardboard were set to follow in July this year. “Large investments have been made to help develop local processing and boost the capacity of existing facilities to meet increased demand,” the National Waste Report 2022 described the situation. The centerpiece of this support would be the Recycling Modernization Fund, through which the Australian Government is investing 250 million Australian Dollar (today more than 165 million US-Dollar) into new and upgraded recycling infrastructure. With contributions from the states and territories as well as the industry, the fund would see over one billion Australian Dollar of investment in recycling infrastructure. As reported, Recycling Modernization Fund projects announced by late 2022 were expected to sort, process, recycle and remanufacture over a million additional tons of waste glass, tires, plastic and paper per year by July 2024. Furthermore, the Australian Government’s Food Waste for Healthy Soils Fund “supports the establishment of new, and upgrades to existing, organics recycling infrastructure to increase the quantity and improve the quality of recycled organic products for use, especially on agricultural soils”. That would correspond with a drive in many states and territories to increase food organics and garden organics collections from Australian households. As of September 2022, 16 projects had been awarded funding of 23.6 million Australian Dollar. In some areas, wastewater authorities were proposing the development of facilities that can handle both biosolids and FOGO (food organics and garden organics), “but this is in its infancy and is not widespread”, the information said.
“The use of energy from waste (EfW) as a practical management option for large waste volumes in Australia is increasing.” In 2022, two large-scale thermal EfW facilities were under construction in Western Australia (at East Rockingham and Kwinana), with operations expected to commence in 2023. Other large facilities in New South Wales and Victoria had received regulatory approvals. “One proposed facility (the Maryvale EfW facility being developed by Opal Australian Paper and partners) has also received significant financial support from the Australian and Victorian Governments,” the document, dated 2022, informed. “These facilities generally incorporate municipal solid waste and rely on long-term contracts with local governments to deliver the large waste volumes needed. There are several much smaller EfW facilities across Australia, generally focused on selected industrial waste streams.”
However, there was also a negative development. As stated, fires have affected some waste infrastructure, including material recovery and e-waste recycling facilities. “Operations will cease until reconstruction is complete, which could be more than two years.”
New facilities: recent examples
In December last year, a new material recycling facility (MRF) – worth 40.5 million Australian Dollar – on the Sunshine Coast went into operation. As reported by the Queensland Government some months earlier, it “is the first new-build facility and largest new investment publicly-owned recycling infrastructure in South East Queensland in a decade. With industry-leading intelligent sorting technology, the Sunshine Coast MRF will be able to process 60,000 tons or more per year to recover glass bottles, plastic containers, cardboard, paper and steel and aluminum cans, supplying a range of quality products for re-use across several industries.”
With the saveBOARD recycling plant, Australia’s first food and beverage carton recycling facility was launched in Warragamba (near Sydney, New South Wales) in February last year. “saveBOARD is an industry-led collaboration between Tetra Pak and other carton manufacturers, Closed Loop, and Freightways. The boards produced at the facility can be used as a substitute for plasterboard and the saveBOARD technology provides a zero waste to landfill solution as any offcuts are reused and end-of-life boards can be remanufactured into new boards”, Tetra Pak informed on the website of the Swedish Australian Chamber of Commerce.
In 2023, a new construction waste recycling facility opened in Brisbane (Queensland). According to Rino Recycling, its fully automated recycling plant turns construction and demolition waste into recycled material for new infrastructure projects. As underlined, the site can process up to 475 tons an hour, the equivalent of 68 truckloads. With a recovery rate of 97 percent, the plant (investment scope: 95 million Australian Dollar) can recycle more than 1.5 million tons of waste annually and produce aggregates, sand, and road bases.
In December last year, the media portal Mirage.News reported that a new plastic recycling facility was unveiled by the Federal and Victorian Labor Governments. The plant is to process more than one billion PET plastic bottles every year – or over 150 bottles for every citizen in Victoria. Circular Plastics Australia’s Project Symphony in Altona North (a suburb of Melbourne) would process plastic bottles, including soft drink bottles, collected from household recycling bins and container deposit sites into new food and beverage packaging. According to CocaCola Europacific Partners, the new facility (worth 50 million Australian Dollar) is the biggest PET plastic bottle recycling plant in Victoria, coinciding with the start of Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme. The plant can produce 2.5 tons of recycled PET resin per hour. As emphasized, it is the second Circular Plastics Australia (PET) recycling facility now operational in Australia, with the first – a similar-sized plant in Albury (New South Wales) – commencing operations in March 2022. Circular Plastics Australia (PET) is a joint venture between Pact Group, Cleanaway Waste Management, Asahi Beverages, and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP).
At the beginning of May 2024, Western Australia’s most advanced tire recycling facility opened, the Federal and Western Australian Labor Governments underlined in a press release. Tyrecycle’s new recycling plant in East Rockingham (40 kilometers south of Perth) would have the capacity to process 42,000 tons of tires every year. “The technology will double Western Australia’s production of crumbed rubber for use in recycled products like rubber chips, granules and powders – for reuse in things like roads and playgrounds.” The project was supported by a 5.2 million Dollar co-investment from the Australian and Western Australian Governments, with Tyrecycle contributing 9.6 million Dollar.
One of Australia’s biggest paper recycling facilities will be built in South East Queensland with plans to turn 220,000 tons of waste paper and cardboard from across Queensland and northern New South Wales into pulp annually for export. According to the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), the national as well as Queensland governments have partnered with Australian company AusWaste Recycling to build a 137 million Australian Dollar waste paper recycling facility at Brendale. The Australian Recycled Pulp and Paper Project (ARPPP) is meant to process waste (about 220,000 tons), including used packaging, newspaper, coffee cups, milk cartons and office paper into value-added paper pulp for paper mills. Construction is expected to be completed in mid-2025.
Strong support
As reported by Austrade in an earlier version of its homepage, there are several incentives, grants and support in the country. Here are some examples:
- The government has committed to establishing a National Reconstruction Fund (15 billion Australian Dollar) to support co-investments in priority areas “including advanced manufacturing, value-add in resources and renewables and low emission technologies”.
- The National Product Stewardship Investment Fund (26 million Dollar) aims to increase the number of industry-led product stewardship schemes in Australia and the recycling rates of existing schemes.
- The Australian Government’s Recycling Modernization Fund has invested 250 million Australian Dollar to support investment in new infrastructure to sort, process and remanufacture materials. The 60 million Dollar plastics technology stream, announced in 2022, targets hard-to-recycle plastics. Co-funded grants of between one million and 20 million Dollar are available to support new or upgraded recycling infrastructure.
- The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), Australia’s green bank and invests in the recycling industry. It committed more than 328 million Australian Dollar to the sector from 2012 to 2023.
- The Australian Government funds Cooperative Research Center Projects (CRC-P) Grants for collaborative projects to develop new technologies, products, and services. For example, the fund has supported research into a process to recycle wind turbine blades.
- Various regions of Australia offer different incentives. For example, the Victorian Government’s circular economy policy, “Recycling Victoria: a new economy”, includes an investment of over 380 million Australian Dollar. In South Australia, Green Industries SA offers a suite of grants to drive the shift to the circular economy, including market development grants and recycling infrastructure grants.
- Australia’s National Plastics Plan outlines the approach to increase plastic recycling, find alternatives and reduce environmental impact.
- The Australian Government is developing a brand and labeling scheme, “ReMade in Australia”, for verified Australian-made recycled content products.
- Australian state and territory environment ministers have agreed to put in place a mandatory packaging design scheme, which requires packaging to be designed so it can be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed. “The Australian Government supports innovation through a competitive research and development tax incentive.”
- The Australian Tax Office’s New Investment Engagement Service gives tailored guidance on tax issues to businesses planning significant new investments in Australia.
https://international.austrade.gov.au/en/why-australia/go-green-with-australia
(Published in GLOBAL RECYCLING Magazine 2/2024, Page 20, Photo: Daria Nipot / stock.adobe.com)