Miles Doing What Matters – New plant highlight recycling jobs
A recycling plant at Caboolture is turning glass bottles and polystyrene into building materials with funding partly from the Miles Government.
And next year it will go even further and begin producing masonry blocks from waste aggregate, removing quarried materials from the process.
State Development Minister Grace Grace has visited the Casafico operation at Caboolture which was backed by a $175,000 Queensland and Federal Labor Government investment through the Recycling Modernisation Fund.
The initial stages of operation will divert 653 tonnes of waste from landfill while creating products for the building industry and delivering 12 jobs.
Recycling innovation is at the centre of the Miles Government’s plans for Queensland to recover 80 per cent of all waste and achieve 65 per cent recycling rates across all waste types by 2030.
Casafico has established a new mixed recycling plant which is producing Vetro Uno, a rendering product made from 66% recycled glass, which replaces virgin sand.
By the end of July, the plant will start turning polystyrene into a levelling coat which finishes a building surface before rendering.
By mid 2025, Casafico will also be producing their Tecoblock masonry building blocks from mixed waste.
The Miles Government is further encouraging innovation in the recycling and resource recovery industries through the Queensland Recycling and Jobs Fund.
Under the Recycling and Jobs Fund, $45 million in state funding continues to be available for large scale projects that projects tackling waste in three key areas: commercial and industrial waste, renewable energy technologies, and electrical and electronic products and batteries.
Applicants can apply for financial assistance of up to $10 million (excluding GST), to a maximum of 50 per cent of the total eligible project cost. Initially, $45 million is being allocated to this program.
