Government funding to boost New Zealand plastics recycling capacity

Plastic recycling company Astron is getting $500,000 under the Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund to expand its plastic recycling facility in New Zealand, Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage announced today.

“The Government is committed to reducing the amount of waste going to landfill or being shipped offshore,” Eugenie Sage said.

“Improving our onshore ability to recycle plastics into new, useful products is really important, particularly given the pressures on the recycling export sector with reduced markets and lower prices for exporting recycling materials.”

Astron is one of Australasia’s largest recyclers of used plastics. Every year it converts millions of kilograms of plastic into new products including plastic resin, slip sheets and underground cable covers.

Astron will use the funding at its Auckland plant, including to install a pre-shredder and extruder, to filter out contamination from organics and other waste. This technology will add to one of the plant’s existing recycling lines, allowing it to run at optimum levels and increase the range of hard-to-recycle plastics, numbered 2 and 4, that can be processed.

The expanded capability will mean agricultural plastics, such as silage wrap and milk powder bags, will be able to be recycled.

The Waste Minimisation Fund was established in 2009 and is funded by a levy of $10 per tonne charged on waste disposed of at landfills.

“We want to accelerate New Zealand’s transition to a circular economy, where we can unmake everything we make, and reuse, recycle or compost each individual part of a product so that waste is essentially designed out of the system,” Eugenie Sage said.

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