2020-09-21
The Victorian Greens have called on the state government to invest in 23 new or expanded recycling factories by 2025 to meet the state’s needs and ensure high recycling rates.
The initiative would form part of a Green New Deal for Victoria and help the state to adopt a world class recycling system.
Over the next five years, exporting recycled materials will be banned, leaving Victoria with two options: to process our waste locally, or dump it in landfill.
Infrastructure Victoria has already calculated that by 2025, Victoria will have significant shortfalls in plastics, food waste and paper and cardboard recycling processing.
The Greens’ have said that an investment in 23 new or expanded factories would help to address this shortfall, while creating roughly 760 new long-term jobs.
Acting Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell, said the government’s economic response to COVID-19 should include a revitalisation of our manufacturing industry to create jobs and protect the environment.
As part of their Green New Deal for Victoria, the Greens also want to see a ban on polystyrene and other single-use plastics, a requirement that all councils use recycled materials first in infrastructure projects and grants provided to small businesses so they can find new ways to use recycled materials.
Quotes attributable to Acting Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell MP:
“Unless our government swiftly invests in a local recycling system, we’re going to see more than 800,000 tonnes of recycling and organics left with nowhere to go but landfill.
“We want to see 23 new or expanded factories by 2025 address this shortfall, create hundreds of much-needed jobs and protect our precious environment.”