Victorian-based recycler APR Group has partnered with Plastoil, the local arm of global recycling technology developer Biofabrik, to launch the new advanced recycling technology WASTX Plastic in Australia.
The technology is operating and being commissioned at the APR Plastics Dandenong facility, with APR investing $2.5 million in the project.
“The site was previously used to receive and store plastics, now it will be converted to turn previously unwanted resources into feedstock to be converted into oil to create food grade plastics,” Darren Thorpe, APR Group CEO, told PKN.
“The WASTX Plastic machine is a new pyrolysis technology brought to Australia through Plastoil and will be the first of its type, creating a fully circular recycling economy in repurposing soft and hard plastic.”
WASTX Plastic uses pyrolysis technology to turn post-consumer soft plastic into tradable synthetic crude oil (syncrude) and energy in a decentralised and fully automated way.
Container-based and designed to be applied anywhere, WASTX has the ability to convert 1kg of plastic waste into 1 litre of recycled oil.
The recycled oil is then fed back into the raw material cycle for the creation of new plastic packaging for food, thus turning problematic waste into a valuable raw material and helping to close the loop, according to APR.
“Australia is lagging well behind on its target to recycle 70 per cent of plastics by 2025, but this partnership will aim to double the national capacity to recycle soft plastics by 2024, up from 16 per currently,” APR Group said.
The material is currently being collected from pre-consumer facilities, and the company said that with the plastics export ban coming on 1 July, it wanted to invest in improving local processing, as these materials would no longer be able to be exported.
