The South Australian government will invest $1.5 million in combating the global problem of waste, including plastic in the oceans.
The government has provided a $750,000 loan to Innovyz, an Adelaide-based business accelerator, with matching funding from industry to back up to 10 ideas for making the state a hub for rubbish remediation.
"Our state is recognised globally for its leadership in waste management, including our 1977 container-deposit legislation, the ban on plastic shopping bags, and landfill bans on e-waste and light globes," Premier Jay Weatherill told a United Nations recycling conference in Adelaide on 2 November, according to The Financial Review.
It is hoped the waste sector, which employs 5000 South Australians and added $1 billion to state coffers in 2015-16, will fill the state's imminent employment shortage.
Innovyz chairman Philip Vafiadis said the nine-month commercialisation program would develop up to 10 new companies.
Their originators will be enrolled in the program at the Innovyz co-working space at the Tonsley Innovation District in Adelaide and given $10,000 to help with the commercialisation of their idea.
He said the industry partners were yet to be finalised, but said the matching funding would fall into place as they identified new ideas they wanted to help develop.
Innovyz will take a minimum 10 per cent equity share of each new business formed from the program.
The $750,000 government loan, delivered through government agency Green Industries SA, will be repaid from the program's commercial returns and recycled into innovation programs in other industries.
