China Sword response: SA Government funds new recycling projects

A robot that can detect paper and plastic bottles and a machine to hoover up and re-use broken glass are among nine recycling projects to receive State Government grants.

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A robot that can detect paper and plastic bottles and a machine to hoover up and re-use broken glass are among nine recycling projects to receive State Government grants.

The $2.7 million of grants, the second round of Greens Industries SA’s infrastructure investment, is a key plank of the State Government’s $12.4m China Sword response.

Boosting the local recycling industry became a key priority after China imposed its National Sword policy, banning the import of certain waste products, impacting about 1.3 million tonnes of Australian material.

Environment Minister David Speirs says the latest round of funding will create more than 50 jobs across the waste management, recycling and resource recovery sector.

Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority (NAWMA) netted three separate grants totalling $1.5m, including a facility upgrade, an investment in autonomous robotics and a “glass fines” recovery system — that will allow it to recycle small pieces of glass.

NAWMA chief executive Adam Faulkner said the authority had already moved to other interstate and overseas markets when the Chinese ban was imposed, but has invested aggressively to capitalise on the opportunities it presented.

Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority chief executive Adam Faulkner at its Edinburgh facility. Picture: Tait Schmaal

Mr Faulkner expects NAWMA will tip about $4 million into the three projects itself, bringing the total value of the latest round of investment up to $5.5 million.

He’s particularly excited about the glass fines recovery, although he says a robot able to sniff out paper and plastics is “pretty cool”.

NAWMA currently recovers most of the glass people put in their recyclable bins, but normally misses chunks smaller than the size of a human palm.

“By the time the bin gets collected and dumped in our factory a lot of it breaks into small pieces,” Mr Faulkner said.

“A machine will pick up smaller bits of glass and return it back into glass bottles and the really small stuff into roads and footpaths instead of using virgin sand.”

Mr Faulkner said existing technology would be used for the paper and plastic detecting robot to combat a similar problem.

“To put it simply, we miss stuff,” he said.

“We take about 60,000 tonnes a year of recycling but we reckon we miss a couple of thousand tonnes a year.”

Recycling in South Australia is worth about $100 a tonne.

With recycling being worth about $100 a tonne, Mr Faulkner says the potential revenue boost is “not insignificant” but will also crucially reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

Other grants handed out include laser sorting for compost, a PVC separation and recycling plant and a new vehicle for the Salvation Army to stop unused goods going to landfill.

Mr Speirs said the latest investment would help SA maintain its “world leading diversion results”, where 83.4 per cent of all waste is diverted from landfill.

“China’s National Sword policy was a catalyst to increase the quality of our recycled materials and develop local markets as a priority,” Mr Speirs said.

“This funding supports a range of projects in both the private sector and local government, across metropolitan and regional South Australia to do just that.”