THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
MAKING INROADS INTO LANDFILL AGAIN AFTER RECYCLING SETBACK
WEST AUSTRALIAN
MONDAY 9 OCTOBER 2023
When the REDcycle soft plastic scheme collapsed last year, it came as a shock to all of us.
Millions of Australians had been meeting their end of the bargain, sorting through their weekly rubbish, separating it out into different bins, and then driving it to the local shops for collection.
To see this scheme fall apart, after all that time and all that commitment, felt like a betrayal.
It also revealed the significant holes in Australia’s recycling system.
Our problem wasn’t a lack of good will in the community. We had plenty of that.
Our problem was a lack of physical capacity to back those good intentions up.
In the end, these materials won’t recycle themselves.
They need to be sorted and processed in factories and warehouses. They need infrastructure and trained workers and effective supply chains.
Australia managed to survive without this capacity until recently, because we were exporting most of our recycling to China and other countries.
That made us complacent, so when China decided to restrict those imports, it came as a shock to the system.
But it also gave us an opportunity to become more self-sufficient as a country.
Our government is determined to grab that opportunity, so our recycling capacity can finally match our good intentions.
With over $1 billion of new investment, we’ve already funded more than 126 new recycling facilities, giving all kinds of waste a second lease on life.
These new sites are turning crushed glass into asphalt for transport projects. They’re reusing plastic bottles for the next generation of food packaging. And they’re taking old tyres and adding them to bitumen for our roads.
Every time we build one of these centres, we’re taking rubbish out of landfill. And every time we recycle more of our waste, we’re ensuring less of it ends up in our parks and on our beaches.
This is obviously great news for native animals and the environment, but it’s also great new for workers and the economy.
Thanks to this investment, Australia is enjoying a recycling jobs boom.
With each new project, there’s the first phase of employment, in construction. And then there’s the second phase, which involves ongoing work in engineering, processing, sorting and logistics.
Our new investments are creating almost 2,800 new jobs around Australia, while diverting an extra one million tonnes of waste out of landfill each year. Which is like pulling nineteen Sydney Harbour Bridges out of the tip every twelve months.
And that's with only half our money out the door.
Of course, this is only one piece of the puzzle. We also have to reduce the amount of waste we’re producing the first place.
That means designing our products with less waste content, while making sure they’re built to be reused, not simply thrown out.
This is all part of our plan to build a more circular economy in Australia, with more sustainability, more self-reliance, more value for our resources, and more jobs for local workers.
ENDS
