New funding should see more than 14,000 tonnes of soft plastics diverted from South Australian landfills each year. 

A $20 million investment from the Australian Government will go towards a project at Recycling Plastics Australia in Kilburn, which will clean and purify soft plastics such as shopping bags, chip packets, and food wrappers. 

This process will produce feedstock for new soft plastic packaging, contributing to the development of an advanced recycling supply chain in Australia. 

This initiative is part of the new Recycling Modernisation Fund Plastics Technology stream, which seeks to enhance Australia's recycling and recovery rates for hard-to-recycle plastics. 

With an overall budget of $60 million, the stream also aims to scale up collection schemes and support the transition to a safe circular economy.

The Recycling Modernisation Fund, a national initiative, is designed to expand Australia’s capacity to sort, process, and remanufacture various materials, including glass, plastic, tyres, paper, and cardboard. 

When combined with co-investments from states and industries, the fund is projected to boost Australian recycling efforts by $1 billion.

In addition to recycling initiatives, the Australian Government is introducing new national packaging laws. 

These laws will mandate that packaging be designed for recovery, reuse, recycling, and reprocessing in accordance with circular economy principles. 

Nationally, this effort is increasing Australia's recycling capacity by more than a million tonnes annually.

The Kilburn project was announced during Plastic Free July, a campaign encouraging Australians to reduce plastic pollution and waste.

“The South Australian government has been taking action to ban more and more unnecessary single-use plastic with bans on all soft plastic shopping bags and single-use plastic including coffee cups from 1 September this year,” says Deputy Premier of South Australia, Susan Close.

“I applaud the Commonwealth for this significant investment which acknowledges both the need for this service, and the strength of South Australia’s existing resource recovery and recycling industry.

“Scaling up equipment and personnel to tackle the challenge of soft plastic recycling is the first step into rebuilding the infrastructure we need for an effective supermarket ‘take back’ scheme.”