The State Government’s drive towards reducing waste and increasing recycling has been boosted with a $1.95million commitment towards building a glass recycling facility in Perth.
Environment Minister Donna Faragher today announced the new facility would be co-funded by the State Government through the WA Waste Authority and by industry through the National Packaging Covenant.
Colmax Glass, the company approved to construct and operate the plant would contribute the balance to the $5.4million project.
Mrs Faragher said the WA Waste Authority and the National Packaging Covenant had formed a joint partnership to improve glass recycling. They had chosen Colmax Glass, a NSW-based company, from competing applicants.
“The company expects to process about 20,000 tonnes of waste glass per year building up to 40,000 tonnes as demand increases. The waste glass would be collected from recycling facilities throughout the metropolitan area,” she said.
“This will be the first plant of its kind in Western Australia that can crush and clean waste glass before distributing it for a range of practical uses including bottle manufacture, insulation batts, surface coatings for road markings and swimming pools, blasting abrasives, filtration and cement additives.
“There are export markets available both interstate and overseas for the sand-like material produced through the recycling process.”
The company proposes to begin construction of the facility towards the end of this year with the first recycled production beginning in the first half of 2010.
“This is a positive step to managing waste and increasing recycling rates,” the Minister said.
“Approximately 80,000 tonnes of glass packaging is distributed throughout WA each year as packaging for food and beverage products.
“About 15,000 tonnes per year of used glass collected in WA is recycled, with the majority of it being sent to South Australia for the production of bottles, but due to the contamination of waste this can be a costly process for local government and private companies in charge of collecting waste glass.
Mrs Faragher said some sorting facilities in WA had stopped recycling glass due to the problems with rejected shipments of waste glass, which was increasing the amount of the material going into landfill.
“As the new plant can accept contaminated glass, the sorting facilities will be able to send their used glass there instead of into landfill,” she said.
Minister's office - 9213 7250