Sydney has taken another step toward a circular economy, adding to its foundational infrastructure with the installation of a hard plastic recycling facility in Lane Cove.
The new recycling plant was designed and built through a partnership between the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and information technology asset disposition firm Renew IT.
It will use UNSW’s Plastics Filament MICROfactorie™️ Technology module to turn hard plastic waste into 3D printer filament.
"A booming sector"
“We’re turning the hard plastics found in all modern electronic hardware but not subject to conventional recycling methods, into feedstock for a booming sector,” UNSW SMaRT Centre founder and director Professor Veena Sahajwalla said.
“Filament is almost entirely imported to Australia and made from petrochemicals, so being able to locally make it from used plastics also reduces the environmental impacts from global freight.
“3D printing is a wonderful technology enjoying rapid uptake but the tragedy is until now 3D printing has been reliant on virgin plastics.”
Reducing plastic production and landfill waste
UNSW says its partnership with Renew IT has the potential to create genuine, large-scale change by combining pioneering science with Renew IT’s commercial expertise and financial commitment.
“This venture addresses two wicked issues,” Renew IT CEO and founder James Lancaster said. “Not only does it reduce virgin plastic production by creating 3D printing filament from waste items but it also stops hard plastic ending up in landfill.
“Electronic goods like televisions, computers and printers are being produced in ever-increasing numbers and often with increasingly short life cycles, when they do reach end of life, the waste industry’s solution has been to deliver them to landfill.
"A beautiful solution"
“Dispatching hard plastics to landfill is not a solution that sits easily with me. To re-purpose that plastic into a new product that’s increasingly in demand and which we can sell at a competitive price is a beautiful solution.
“If 3D printing feedstock can be competitively produced by recycling plastic, we shouldn’t be producing it with virgin materials.
“By recovering high-quality plastics from e-waste for re-manufacturing we can help organisations lower their Scope 3 emissions and boost local manufacturing.”
Australia produced about 3.4 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2018-2019 with only 13% of that being recycled.
Clean Up Australia estimates about $419 million in economic value is lost each year in unrecovered value from plastic waste, an economic and environmental drain technologies like the Plastics Filament MICROfactorie could eventually eliminate.