A new round of grant funding to help local governments address waste infrastructure gaps in remote areas has opened under the Recycling Modernisation Fund.
The round is focused on increasing the sorting, processing, and manufacturing or remanufacturing capacity of regional and remote locations, and will total $7 million.
Co-funded grants of between $10,000 and $1 million are available, with projects that provide local solutions to local problems, seek to increase local employment, provide economic benefit, and solve transport logistic complexities being highly regarded.
Examples include:
- community sorting stations or baling equipment;
- installing new equipment, eg, sorting lines, AI or scanning technology, or pulping machinery;
- breaking down e-waste into plastics and glass for recycling;
- advanced recycling of hard-to-recycle plastics, such as mixed, multi-layer, flexible or contaminated plastics back into food-grade recycled plastics or other products through chemical, thermal or biological processes;
- recycling of glass and plastics for use in road, footpath, cycleway or rail products;
- beaking down components of waste tyres into new tyres and products, or for further recycling;
- trials to remanufacture plastic, glass, and other material into building products;
- projects (including trial projects or multi-location projects) that include improved collection of feedstock or preparing it for collection near main routes for further processing, recycling, and re-manufacturing at a major location; and
- recycling of agricultural plastics, irrigation pipes and other drought infrastructure.
Preference will also be given to applications from small organisations, not-for-profits, local government, community groups, regional research institutions and Traditional Custodians. Further preference is provided for projects in remote or very remote locations, and those that connect local businesses, build partnerships and support local supplier hubs.
Further information, including a copy of the program guidelines, is available on the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment website. Applications for funding will be processed by state and territory governments.