The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has welcomed the announcement by the Federal Government that it will invest in Australia’s waste and recycling capacity and help enable more wastepaper and cardboard to be recycled domestically. Source: Timberbiz
The Morrison Government will commit $190 million to a new Recycling Modernisation Fund (RMF) that will generate $600 million of recycling investment and support new innovative infrastructure to sort, process and remanufacture waste materials, like paper and cardboard.
“This new investment by the Federal Government is a vote of confidence in our renewable pulp and paper industry’s ability to manage our paper and cardboard waste right here in Australia,” Acting Chief Executive Officer of AFPA Gavin Matthew said.
“The waste export ban, announced in 2019, poses a challenge for both industry and government to ensure Australia has the capacity to utilise our domestic waste-paper, and the RMF is a big step towards meeting that challenge.
“The RMF gives Australian companies the opportunity to increase investment in domestic sorting and remanufacturing processes, which will see increased production of lower emissions and energy efficient recycled content products, contributing to the development of the circular economy.
“The recovery and recycling of paper and paperboard has increased dramatically over the last fifteen years. This has been made possible because of increased recovery rates from both kerbside collections and from commercial and industrial sources, and because of significant investments in paper recycling capacity by our companies.
“Further investment will continue this trend, as well as create an upswing in manufacturing jobs across Australia.
“Australia’s pulp and paper industry looks forward to continue working with the government to strengthen our circular economy, reform procurement policies, and ensure that waste-paper and cardboard materials do not end up in landfill.”
