Remondis Australia is now operating a $2.5 million St Marys baling facility in Western Sydney, which has the capacity to bale up to 25,000 tonnes of recyclable material every year. Baled materials will be transferred to local recyclers Visy and Opal, and also to offshore export markets.
The baling operation adds a vital waste processing link at the St Marys site, making it a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly one-stop-shop for waste collection, separation, sorting, baling and distribution for recycling, says Remondis.
Recyclable materials are received from other waste collection companies and also direct from Remondis’s large customers. Much of the material originates from Sydney’s Greater West, including local collection routes and shopping centres.
Much of the baled products will be processed via Remondis’ in-house Commodity Trading Desk, with bales transferred to Visy, Opal and offshore export markets for recycling into other cardboard products.
The baler is a 180 HP Godswill GB-1111F, which was refurbished at St Marys after the plant was acquired during the company’s acquisition of Watts Waste. The feed conveyor and ramp are new, supplied by Material Recovery Solutions.
Four new jobs have been created as baling operations ramp up, adding to the 50+ existing jobs at the St Marys site which specalises in general commercial waste logistics and recycling services.
“This new baling capacity means we can do end-to-end waste handling on site instead of collecting recyclables and sending them elsewhere for processing,” said Susie McBurney, Remondis GM NSW/ACT.
“The waste comes to us and we process it and feed it back to the market, enabling it to be used all over again.
“This is a win for local businesses wanting to manage their waste locally, and a win for the economy, employment and, most of all, the environment.”
The new capability is timely given cardboard use in Australia. Australia is a big consumner of cardboard,” said Alex Hatherly, chief technical officer at Remondis. “So much of what we buy comes in cardboard, and most is imported from manufacturers in South East Asia.
“The capability we’ve added at St Marys streamlines our ability to send used cardboard back to our northern neighbours where it can be recycled into more environmentally sustainable packaging for goods being imported to Australia, reducing consumption of virgin materials for packing production.”
The launch marks another milestone for Remondis, given that St Marys is where the international waste management leader commenced operations in Australia in 1982, forty years ago.
In February, Remondis Australia became the sole logistics and collection partner for the Big Bag Recovery Product Stewardship Scheme.
