Visy has opened a $6.5m recycling facility, which the company says will recover 98 per cent of all plastics entering the Brisbane, Maroochydore and Gold Coast kerbside recycling systems. Meanwhile the company is set to raise prices in order to offset increased energy, transport and labour costs.
Located at Visy’s Gibson Island materials recovery facility, the automated plastic recovery facility will sort seven different types of plastic and liquid paperboard.
The facility is expected to increase plastic recycling efficiency in Qld by 15 per cent and is expected to recover an additional 2,000 tonnes of plastic packaging in the first year of operation.
In operation, the facility uses four automated optical sorting heads to detect and recognise each piece of plastic passing through the stream. Once detected and recognised, the optical sorting heads will redirect the flow of each piece of plastic into a stream specific for that plastic type.
Steve Boland, divisional director of Visy Recycling says recycling both stops valuable materials going to landfill, and enables the remanufacturing of products made from the recovered materials - at a fraction of the energy cost of using new virgin raw materials.
Boland says, “Hopefully the days are gone when we thoughtlessly threw our paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and steel and aluminium cans away into the garbage. Our understanding of climate change means that the role of recycling is now much more critical.”
Also in the news, John Murphy, chief executive of Visy has told the Australian Financial Review that Visy is reviewing its operations and is expecting to raise prices for the second time before the end of the year.
In April, Visy packaging customers were hit with a four per cent price increase, the paper reported. The latest move to increase prices comes after company boss Richard Pratt was charged with four counts of misleading evidence during an ACCC investigation.
