Minister for the Environment John Thwaites, announced a grant for $160,050 to the Western Land Reclamation division of Sunshine Groupe towards a new industrial waste recovery plant at the Brooklyn landfill site.

‘This state-of-the-art facility is expected to reduce waste sent to landfill at the site by up to 85 percent.’ Mr Thwaites said.

The funding has been provided to Western Land Reclamation through EcoRecycle Victoria’s Towards Zero Waste Infrastructure Grants Program to upgrade Victorian recycling facilities.

‘Investing in Victoria’s reprocessing capacity is an important step in our move towards zero waste to landfill.’ Mr Thwaites said.

The semi-mobile mixed waste sorting plant will process incoming inert wastes such as stone, concrete, wood, paper and plastic.  The mineral content will then be diverted to an associated construction material crushing facility and other components sent to selected processors for reprocessing.

'Recovering and recycling material benefits the environment in several ways – natural resources are preserved, fossil fuel consumption is reduced and the production of greenhouse gases is reduced.  Our challenge is to become a sustainable state, in which waste generation is greatly reduced, resources are used more efficiently and as much recyclable material as possible is recovered.’ Mr Thwaites said.

EcoRecycle Victoria’s role is to encourage all Victorians to move towards zero waste to protect the environment.  It does this by promoting and advocating the sustainable use of resources, waste reduction, reuse and recycling.