A total of $22.3 million in grants is now available to councils, private industry and not-for-profit organisations to support the construction of new large scale recycling infrastructure.
The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment Acting Director of Resource Recovery Amanda Kane, said the Major Resource Recovery Infrastructure grants are part of the NSW Environment Protection Authority’s $802 million Waste Less Recycle More initiative.
“The funding is aimed at accelerating and stimulating investment in waste and recycling infrastructure to help NSW reach its target of 75% diversion of all waste from landfill by 2021,” Ms Kane said.
“The grants support the construction of large scale infrastructure to recover and process valuable material that would otherwise be sent to landfill.
“The capital costs of major infrastructure can be a significant barrier to the construction of new recycling facilities. This grant seeks to attract investment in major resource recovery infrastructure in NSW by reducing the pay-back period on new facilities.”
Ms Kane said earlier rounds of the program have already provided $51 million to projects to receive and recycle a range of resources including timber, plastics, aggregates, rubber, glass and metals.
“This includes $5 million to ResourceCo for a new facility at Wetherill Park to recover metals and timber to produce refuse-derived fuel for use in energy generation.
“Boral Cement successfully secured a $4 million grant from the EPA to upgrade its plant at Berrima to replace up to 20% of the coal it uses to generate energy with refuse-derived fuel, including from ResourceCo, reducing coal use and emissions.
“Five facilities supported through the program are already increasing the State’s processing capacity by 340,000 tonnes a year. More than 500,000 tonnes of additional processing capacity is expected to come on line over the next two years as further projects are completed.”
Environmental Trust Director Grants Tina Bidese said the grants are funded by the Environmental Trust and delivered through a partnership between the Trust and the NSW EPA.
“Working together, the Trust and the EPA are offering a major opportunity for co-funded investment in infrastructure to recover more household and business waste,” Ms Bidese said.
“In doing so, we’re reducing the environmental impacts of waste in landfill, making the most of valuable resources and creating new jobs for the people of NSW.”
Applications close 27 August 2019.
The EPA is hosting an information session in August 2019 to assist potential applicants. This session can be attended in person or online.
