Australian Government announces recycling and clean energy fund

THE Australian Government has announced that funding is now available for recycling and clean energy projects as part of the A$1.3bn (US$1bn) Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI).

The MMI is the main part of the A$1.5bn Modern Manufacturing Strategy, which aims to invest the money over four years to help Australian manufacturers. Recycling and clean energy is the one of the six key areas under the MMI and the final one to be open for funding. The other five areas are space, medical products, resources technology and critical minerals processing, food and beverage, and defence.

The recycling and clean energy funding initiative aims to help manufacturers to reach commercial scale and become part of domestic and international supply chains.

Christian Porter, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, said: “This funding is targeted at businesses who are manufacturing in these areas and will leverage the billions of dollars in other investments being made across Government into recycling and clean energy projects.”

Investment will be guided by the Recycling and Clean Energy National Manufacturing Priority road map which was released alongside the funding announcement. The plan identifies specific areas of opportunities for investment, which include recyclable products and packaging, products made from recycled feedstock such as plastic or organic waste, hydrogen technologies, thermal energy, microgrids, inverters, specialised batteries, and low emissions steel and aluminium.

Angus Taylor, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, said: “We’re a trusted supplier of energy, commodities and manufactured products across the Indo-Pacific. Getting the technologies of the future right will position us to support our customer countries’ efforts to decarbonise while growing their economies.”

Sussan Ley, Minister for the Environment, said: “At a time when we are driving an unprecedented transformation of our recycling industries, this investment will encourage new technologies to recover, recycle and reprocess materials like e-waste and problematic plastics into new products. We are taking action to ban problem exports, to create procurement markets for recycled goods and to establish industry-led product stewardship schemes that make it clear it isn’t good enough to simply throw things away at the end of their life. They can and need to be made into new products.”

Successful projects will be co-funded grants of A$1m–20m. Funding is available for businesses to integrate products into supply chains and for businesses to commercialise new or improved products or processes.