A new $40.5 million material recycling facility (MRF) on the Sunshine Coast is nearing its completion and is expected to go live by the end of 2023, according to an announcement from the Queensland government.
The building of the facility received backing from all levels of government, including $22 million in funding from the Queensland government’s Recycling and Jobs Fund, $13.5 million from the Sunshine Coast Council, and a $5 million contribution from the Federal government’s Recycling Modernisation Fund.
The new facility is the first of its kind and the largest new investment in publicly-owned recycling infrastructure in South East Queensland in a decade.
The MRF will be equipped with cutting-edge intelligent sorting technology to process 60,000 tonnes or more per year, recovering glass bottles, plastic containers, cardboard, paper, and steel and aluminium cans and supplying a range of quality products for reuse across several industries.
The site will also sort materials collected from household and business yellow-lidded bins at 98 per cent purity, the highest quality of any Australian recycling facility, said Sunshine Coast Regional Council Mayor Mark Jamieson.
The expanded recycling capacity to be brought by the new MRF is aligned with a key finding of the South East Queensland Waste Management Plan, a region-wide collaborative waste approach spearheaded by South East Queensland Mayors through the Council of Mayors – South East Queensland.
It also supports resource recovery and diversion from landfill targets outlined in the Queensland Waste Strategy.
“To protect our environment, we have set ourselves an ambitious goal of diverting 80 per cent of waste from landfill and recycling 65 per cent of materials by 2030,” said Minister for Environment Leanne Linard. “One way we will achieve our goals is to support greater re-use, recycling and remanufacturing of recyclable materials and this new materials recycling facility will help us do that.”
“More than 80 local jobs have been created during construction and 18 new full-time positions have been established to run the facility when it commences operation later this year,’’ said Sunshine Coast Regional Council Environment Portfolio Councillor Maria Suarez.
