Victoria is now home to Visy’s newly upgraded glass recycling facility in Laverton, which will process up to 200,000 tonnes of glass each year, including bottles and glass recycled from the Container Deposit Scheme (CDS).
Visy’s new $50 million upgrade doubles the facility’s glass recycling capacity and delivers 20 new optical sorters to process glass as small as 3mm.
Minister for Environment Steve Dimopoulos opened the site today, which now has the capacity to recycle about 150 glass bottles per Victorian each year.
The new site will also recycle materials collected from Victoria’s new kerbside glass bins, transforming used glass into high-quality food and beverage containers while improving glass-to-glass recycling capacity across the state.
Over 220 million containers are already being recycled through the Victorian government’s CDS, with an average of around 10 million cans a week.
“It’s incredible to see so many Victorians getting involved in recycling – returning over 220 million containers to be recycled into new products instead of going to landfill or polluting our precious environment,” said Minister Dimopoulos
“This is an important upgrade for Victoria and Visy on our way to manufacturing new glass bottles and jars made with an average of 70 per cent recycled content,” said Visy Chairman Antony Pratt.
Victoria aims to divert 80 per cent of all material away from landfills by 2030, creating thousands of new jobs and boosting the state’s economy by up to $6.7 billion.
To achieve this, the state government has poured over $515 million in investments towards transforming Victoria’s waste and recycling system.
