The National Waste and Recycling Industry Councils (NWRIC) welcomes today’s announcement by the Commonwealth Government to invest over $190 million dollars into the Recycling Modernisation Fund, along with $35 million to implement the national waste policy action plan and $24.6 million to improve national waste data.
The NWRIC represents national waste and recycling companies committed to advancing waste and recycling services Australia wide. Ensuring a safe, fair and sustainable waste and recycling industry.
In speaking about today’s announcement, the NWRIC CEO, Rose Read said “with the Commonwealth, putting $190 million on the table for States and our industry to match, together we can rapidly scale up Australia’s paper, plastic, glass and tyre recycling capacity to become world class”.
“This will mean Australia converts more waste into higher valued resources ready for reuse locally by manufacturers and brands in their packaging and products; the construction sector in their roads and other essential infrastructure or for export as higher value “input ready” commodities.
“It will also mean more jobs, less waste to landfill and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
“As an industry we are proud to not only provide an essential service to all households and businesses but to help rebuild Australia’s economy as we recover from COVID. The legacy of this investment will also serve future generations.”
However, the most important aspect about today’s announcement by Minister Ley and Assistant Minister Evans is the Commonwealth’s commitment to develop new domestic markets for recycled materials by setting national standards for recycled content in roads and making recycled products a focus of procurement for infrastructure, defence estate management and general government purchasing.
“We must have strong local demand for recycled materials, to maximise the potential return on investment of this recycling infrastructure (economically, socially and environmentally)”. Ms Read said.
“We congratulate the government on taking this leadership role to create local demand for recycled materials and call on all businesses, state and local governments to do the same. Whether making packaging, products, roads, or buildings, each project engineer, each product manager and each designer should be encouraged, supported and equipped by these organisations to ask how can I replace virgin material with recycled material?
“The industry looks forward to working with the Commonwealth and its state counterparts in building more productive and resilient resource recovery infrastructure that supplies world class quality recycled materials to the manufacturing and construction sectors. Giving them confidence and certainty in using locally recovered materials, and thus enabling them to move towards zero emissions as they re-circulate resources through the economy”, Ms Read said.
