Expanding our regional recycling and reuse capacity

Through the Recycling Victoria Recycling Modernisation Fund (RV-RMF), the Victorian and Australian Governments announced $3 million for a new infrastructure project that will allow GT Recycling to reprocess an additional 8,000 tonnes of plastic per year. That’s approximately 2,597 garbage trucks worth once the facility is fully operational in 2022.

Based in Geelong for more than 20 years, family-owned GT Recycling supports local industry and the Geelong Council to reprocess plastic waste regionally. With a total government and industry investment of $4.7 million, the project will create 9 full-time jobs and expand the existing facility so that it can process a wider range of plastics, including soft plastics from the local agricultural industry.

Thanks to the investment, GT Recycling will be able to clean, sort, and reprocess business and agricultural plastic waste, including plant pots, shade cloth and grain storage tarps. These plastics will be sorted and processed in Victoria to create material for re-use by domestic manufacturers, who will transform it into new plastic products for use in the construction, agricultural and equestrian industries, as well as the production of furniture and road making materials.

Victoria’s recycling sector is at a turning point. With national waste export bans coming into effect, there has never been a more important time for investment in, and support for, our transition to a circular economy.

Fast tracking recycling investment

The RV-RMF is jointly funded by the Victorian and Australian Governments. The investment will increase Victoria’s capacity to sort, process and remanufacture materials through innovative infrastructure and technology, ahead of the national waste export ban that comes into full effect by 2024.

Funded projects will address the challenges of the national waste export bans for paper and cardboard, plastics and tyres in the Victorian recycling system by:

• building or upgrading infrastructure
• improving processing capacity
• increasing use of recycled materials in manufacturing or infrastructure.

Learn more about the RV-RMF projects.

In addition to the GT Recycling project, Sustainability Victoria is working across government and industry to fast-track high-quality infrastructure and market solutions that provide long term, sustainable improvements to the state’s processing and sorting capacity and capability.

Some of the programs that support this goal include:

• Recycling Victoria Infrastructure Fund – a $76.9 million commitment by the Victorian Government to address urgent challenges that have disrupted Victoria’s recycling services.

• Market Acceleration Package (MAP) – $30,5 million to drive demand for recycled materials across the economy. The program identifies new uses for recycled materials and makes it easier for these products to reach commercialisation.  

• Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC) – $7 million to spark innovation and solutions for business.

Recycling Victoria: building our circular economy

The Victorian Government made an unprecedented investment of $515 million to deliver the biggest transformation and reform of Victoria’s waste and recycling sector. This includes Recycling Victoria: a new economy, the $380 million action plan and investment that will transform the state’s recycling sector, create thousands of jobs, and set up Victoria for a more sustainable future.

Over the last 5 years the Victorian Government invested nearly $23 million to increase domestic recycling capacity for plastics by over 140,000tpa, of which 73,000tpa will be commissioned by the end of 2021.