Emerging Industries and Advanced Manufacturing
Recycling and the Circular Economy Australia and Western Australia’s commitment to divert 80 percent of waste from landfill by 2030, along with international import prohibitions on Australian comingled recyclables and regulations driving environmentally sustainable landfilling practices are driving rapid transformation of the waste sector. The potential for government and industry to benefit from investments in regional waste sorting and recycling is significant. Due to the vast scale of WA, returns are available across the regions, increasing as the distance from the metropolitan region grows. Due to the short distances that it is economic to transport low value per tonne and cubic metre cleaned and sorted waste materials, most regional areas will benefit from establishing materials sorting facilities at strategic locations to avoid the high transport and carbon costs shipping materials to Perth. There is the potential for sorted and cleaned plastics to be exported directly from the region to avoid land transport and carbon costs entirely and capture a small return. Other potential high-volume sources of revenue include the incorporation of certain types of recycled rubber, plastic, concrete and food and garden organics in road base, bitumen and concrete products. The initial market for these products is the transport sectors, but they have application for the property development sector and other types of economic and social infrastructure. Additional revenues are available through the carbon offsets available through using renewable energy to power sorting and recycling processes and methane emissions avoided through composting food and garden organics. Current Projects: • The Shire of Ashburton is in the process of establishing a new regional waste management facility in Onslow, Western Australia. The Class IV facility will accept Class III and IV waste, including waste from the mining, industrial and oil and gas sectors across the wider Pilbara region. The Pilbara Regional Waste Management Facility will be an integrated facility consisting of a Greenwaste facility, Construction and Demolition Waste Facility, Liquid Waste Facility, Tyre Mono-cell and Class IV landfill. 73 • Boodarie Waste-to-Energy and Materials Recovery Facility, Port Hedland is an approved waste to energy facility. The Gasification incinerator can take up to 225 000 tonnes of waste which includes permission for MSW, C&D, C&I, Green waste, Tyres and conveyor belts, Waste oils, Oily water and Solvents. • There is an opportunity to establish a large-scale steel recycling facility to decommission major infrastructure components reaching the end of their life cycle.
www.ashburton.wa.gov.au/live/services/waste-management/pilbara-waste-management-facility.aspx
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