Australia is standing on a “wasted opportunity”, says UNSW Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla, calling for a radical reimagining of waste not as a burden to be managed, but as a valuable feedstock for local manufacturing, jobs, and innovation.
Addressing the National Press Club in Canberra today, Prof Sahajwalla challenged policymakers, industry, and communities to rethink how Australia deals with discarded materials. “True sustainability demands we harness this potential and transform waste into a resource stream for advanced manufacturing,” she said.
As director of UNSW’s Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre, Prof Sahajwalla has pioneered a network of small, modular MICROfactories that turn discarded products into new materials and components. Each MICROfactorie operates on a footprint no larger than half a tennis court, designed to convert complex waste such as e-waste, textiles, glass and tyres into high-value outputs.
Across New South Wales, several examples of the model in action already exist: in Sydney’s south-west, old mattresses are transformed into green ceramic tiles; in Lane Cove, e-waste is re-manufactured into filament for 3D printing; and in Taree, reclaimed aluminium is reformed into aerosol cans through an industrial partnership with Jamestrong Packaging. With additional MICROfactories planned for regional communities under the federal Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub initiative, the concept is now being positioned for rollout across Australia.
Prof Sahajwalla describes this decentralised manufacturing model as a practical expression of circular economy principles. “Using our waste resources as feedstock develops a circular economy where supply chains are linked up and local jobs are created, with significant environmental and social benefits,” she said.
Circular aluminium
The partnership with Jamestrong Packaging in Taree represents one of the most advanced demonstrations of the MICROfactorie concept at industrial scale. Jamestrong, a leading Australasian producer of metal packaging for consumer brands at multiple sites, manufactures around 100 million aerosol cans each year at its Taree facility.
Working with the SMaRT Centre, the company has installed a new aluminium casting line that uses reclaimed aluminium feedstock processed via UNSW’s Green Aluminium MICROfactorie. This breakthrough enables aluminium from composite or contaminated sources, such as materials with plastic coatings or adhesives, to be separated, purified and remade into high-quality slugs suitable for packaging production.
“What’s exciting,” Prof Sahajwalla told the Press Club, “is that a growing portion of Jamestrong’s output will now come from reclaimed materials, making it one of the first aluminium packaging manufacturers in the world to do this.”
The implications are significant. Re-forming aluminium locally reduces reliance on imported slugs, reshoring a key element of the supply chain for the first time in years. It also avoids the massive energy and emissions associated with smelting new aluminium from bauxite. Early results show that Green Aluminium slugs produced through the MICROfactorie approach not only meet performance and safety standards but could one day become an export product themselves, creating a circular economy solution that generates both regional employment and trade opportunity.
For Prof Sahajwalla, Jamestrong’s Taree facility proves that university research can deliver real-world impact when aligned with industry collaboration and government support. The project received backing through the federal Trailblazers for Recycling and Clean Energy program, connecting the SMaRT Centre’s research to practical deployment.
“The measure of success,” she said, “is not just in how many journal articles we publish, but in the problems we solve – how much waste we divert from landfill, how much carbon we avoid burning, and how much value we return to our communities.”
Scaling circularity
The vision now, according to Prof Sahajwalla, is for micro-scale re-manufacturing hubs to proliferate across Australia, embedded within councils, regional centres and small businesses, each tailored to local waste streams. Whether turning tyres into steel, textiles into tiles or aluminium into packaging, the technology is modular, flexible and designed to be economically viable at community scale.
She believes this model could close the loop on the country’s waste challenge while revitalising regional manufacturing. “If value creation from end-of-life products is factored in, then new supply chains can be developed, redefining how we make, unmake and remake products,” she said.
Prof Sahajwalla’s message to government was clear: Australia must “buy what we’re inventing”. She urged procurement policies that favour locally developed circular technologies and reward companies investing in Australian R&D.
Her optimism is grounded in evidence – the technologies work, the economics are sound, and the benefits extend from waste reduction to regional resilience. “We know the status quo doesn’t work,” she concluded. “The future relies on seeing the value in what we have discarded.”
