Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] My question is to the Minister for the Environment. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is transforming Australia's waste and recycling industry, including in my home state of New South Wales, and how this benefits not just our environment but regional economies as well?

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question and commend her for her passion and excitement about her local waste industry on the Central Coast. It's a passion and excitement shared by all those on this side of the House.

This week the Australian and New South Wales governments have announced 22 new recycling projects, including 11 in regional New South Wales. That will create over 50 permanent jobs from Narrabri to Taree, Orange and Newcastle. However, I know the honourable member is particularly passionate about a project in Somersby in the Robertson electorate, where Sulo will be upgrading moulding equipment to recycle old kerbside bins and bottle caps back into new recycled garbage bins. We know this works because we've seen this in the member for Mackellar's electorate, where Sulo collected 184,000 old wheelie bins that were washed, chipped and repelletised for use in the manufacture of new bins for the Northern Beaches Council. I know the member for Parkes recently visited Australian Recycled Plastics in Narrabri in his electorate. It was started by local farmers Dale and Helen Smith. They saw an opportunity, through their trucking business, to backload deliveries with used plastic containers and recycle them. This funding will help them expand their operation by investing in new equipment to run two lines to process drink bottles and milk bottles, processing approximately 9,300 tonnes a year.

All of the New South Wales new projects show how the Morrison government's $190 million investment in the Recycling Modernisation Fund is turbocharging this nation's recycling capacity. We need to capture the economic value of waste. We need to create markets for recycled materials. This is the level of investment that will drive jobs in key areas at a critical time, increasing the states' recycling capacity by an estimated 120,000 tonnes every year.

Other projects include $40 million for a new materials recovery facility in Newcastle to recycle waste glass, plastic, tyres, paper and cardboard. In the Shoalhaven, a partnership between the local council and the University of New South Wales's Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology, the SMaRT Centre, will establish a MICROfactorie that turns glass and mattresses into green ceramic tile for kitchen benches and remanufactures plastics into filament for 3D printing.

This is all about easing pressure on our environment by recycling more materials, including plastic, glass, cardboard and even coffee cups. But, most importantly, as we come through and out of COVID, it's about creating jobs, it's about creating economic investment and it's about backing regional Australia.