SA Government announces $12m support package for councils and recycling industry to deal with China ban

MORE than $12 million will go towards South Australian councils and the recycling industry to help them deal with the fallout of a Chinese rubbish ban threatening to cripple them.

MORE than $12 million will go towards South Australian councils and the recycling industry to help them deal with the fallout of a Chinese rubbish ban threatening to cripple them.

The State Government today announced a $12.4 million support package for the recycling industry and local government to counter what has been dubbed China’s National Sword Policy.

The change by China, banning imported paper and plastic, sent shockwaves through Australia’s councils since it was announced in January.

SA Environment Minister David Speirs said the package would not only help councils and the recycling industry adjust to the changes, but could also allow them to drive innovation in the sector.

“Many people would be aware that several months ago China changed its policy around the types of waste that it would take from Australia,” Mr Speirs said.

“China had previously taken about five per cent of Australia’s recyclable waste and that has created a significant change in what has happened in Australia’s recyclable industry.

Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority chief executive officer Adam Faulkner at their facility in Edinburgh, SA.

“That has had a big impact on the way that waste management is able to occur in an affordable way and there has been a need for Australia’s waste management sector to adjust to the new situation.”

The $12.4m package will be over the next two financial years and applications for it will open this week.

It will be made up of $5.8m in infrastructure grants for local government and industry to maintain and improve the capacity of South Australia’s recycling systems, a $5m loan scheme to support projects with large capital requirements that can have an immediate impact on local reprocessing of targeted waste, $500,000 to help transport of recycling in regional areas, $300,000 for market development grants and $800,000 towards a statewide education campaign around recycling.

Mr Speirs said the main goal was ensuring that South Australia could avoid what took place in Queensland, where one of its biggest councils, Ipswich City, announced it would dump all recyclable materials from household yellow-top bins into landfill.

“What we saw with Ipswich City Council in Queensland was quite disgraceful, we don’t want to get into a situation where our residents are putting rubbish into their yellow bin and thinking that will end up in landfill because that will result in a loss of confidence in the industry more broadly,” he said.

File photo: A Chinese labourer sorting out plastic bottles for recycling in Dong Xiao Kou village, on the outskirt of Beijing, in 2015 / AFP Photo/Fred Dufour

“We are putting money on the table to ensure that we don’t get into that situation.”

But Mr Speirs said the State Government would not do what was at the top of the Local Government Association SA’s wishlist to address the China crisis and freeze increases to the Solid Waste Levy.

“Many businesses have built the solid waste levy into their forward estimates it gives the industry certainty and allows them to innovate,” he said.

“That levy will not be changing but that package we have on the table now offers a range of ways to access funding.”