Pact and Cleanaway to build $38m plastic recycling plant in Vic

Many food and beverage manufacturers have committed to reduce their reliance on virgin plastic by 2025 — and a new plastic recycling facility, announced by Pact Group and Cleanaway, could help them include locally processed recycled content in their packaging.

The $38 million facility will process more than 20,000 tonnes — or the equivalent of over 500,000 plastic milk bottles and food tubs — collected from household recycling bins into food-grade resins and will be located at Cleanaway’s recycling facility at Laverton.

The post-consumer polyethylene recycling plant will convert locally collected kerbside materials into high-quality, food-grade rHDPE and rPP resin.This will facilitate the inclusion of locally processed recycled resin into food, dairy and other packaging.

This joint venture between Pact and Cleanaway complements the existing PET joint venture between Pact, Cleanaway and Asahi, with construction of another PET recycling facility in Albury underway and ahead of schedule for commissioning later this year.

“The new recycling facility highlights the progress we are making in expanding our reuse and recycling capability, a core component of our growth strategy,” said Pact’s Managing Director and CEO, Sanjay Dayal.

The Laverton facility will help to increase Australia’s local processing capacity for recycled plastics, which are subject to a series of rolling export bans from later this year. Australia has lacked local onshore processing capacity to manage reprocessing of waste collected through kerbside collections, most of which was being sent offshore prior to export bans.

Construction of the plant will start towards the end of the year and it is expected to be fully operational by December 2022.

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