The Australian national government has invested $20 million to support the development of Recycling Plastics Australia’s new domestic soft plastics recycling facility in Kilburn.

The centre is expected to divert 14,000 tonnes of soft plastics from South Australian landfills annually. It will process materials such as shopping bags, crisp packets, and food wrappers, turning them into feedstock for use in new packaging.

“Recycling Plastics Australia has a proud history leading the circular economy by recycling plastics that are difficult to process,” Recycling Plastics Australia chair Peter Gregg said in a statement.

“We are grateful that the Australian and South Australian Governments have supported this $40-million dollar project that is to transform soft plastics recycling in Australia. This funding will see our Kilburn site in South Australia become the prominent soft-plastic recycling processor in the country, with materials recycled here and sold into local and global packaging markets.”

Recycling Plastics Australia announced the Kilburn project during the Plastic Free July campaign, which promotes the reduction of plastic pollution among Australians.

In addition to funding recycling centres, the Australian government is focusing on improving packaging design through new national packaging laws.

These laws will mandate that packaging be designed in accordance with circular economy principles, ensuring it can be recovered, reused, recycled, and reprocessed safely.

On a national scale, the government is scaling up recycling capacity by over one million tonnes per year and creating over 3,000 jobs in the process, with more than 600 of those in South Australia.