New recycling plant to save millions

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Published: 25th August 2021

A new recycling plant will save Fraser Coast residents millions of dollars over the next 10 years.

At its meeting today, Council endorsed funding the capital costs of building of a new Material Recovery Facility (MRF), with detailed planning to get under way now and the new plant to be operational by the end of 2022.

Cr David Lee said the current MRF at Dundowran was at the end of its working life and no longer met industry best practice due to its configuration and the age of the equipment used.

“About 32 percent of the product currently going through the centre ends up in landfill, whereas with the new plant, we aim to reduce the level of contaminated product being sent to landfill to between 10 and 15 percent,” he said.

“The new MRF will also give us more flexibility to meet changing markets and the potential to introduce closed loop systems such as turning plastics into park benches or planking, or crushing glass to create sand that can be used in Council projects.

“The cleaner the sorted material, the better chance we have of finding markets for the recycled product.”

Council will also save money by funding the building of the new plant.

“A financial analysis of the different funding options contained in the recyclables processing contract, demonstrated that we could save $7 million over the life of the 10-year contract by directly funding the building of the new MRF,” Cr Lee said.

The current MRF processes about 10,000 tonnes of mixed recyclables from the kerb-side collection of yellow-lid recycling bins.

Of that material about half is mixed plastics.

Each week the plant recovers:

50 tonnes of glass;
2 tonnes of aluminium;
Four tonnes of steel;
130 tonnes of carboard, and;
90 tonnes of a paper and cardboard mix.