Sims receives local approval for ASR plant

Australia-based global scrap recycling company Sims Limited says it has received approval from a local government agency in Brisbane, Australia, to install equipment at its pilot Sims Resource Renewal facility.

The company says planning development approval was granted by the Brisbane City Council and the government of Queensland state for the facility, which it expects to be operational in 2022.

States the company, “Sims Resource Renewal plans to build several facilities around the world by 2030 to enable the company to transform more than 1 million metric tons of the material left over following metal recycling into new, useful products for society each year.”

The plant’s feedstock will be auto shredder residue (ASR), the largely plastic nonmetallic portion emanating from large metals shredding facilities.

Sims says it is exploring producing saleable hydrogen as one of the outputs of the Resource Renewal process. “Following a commercial demonstration in Oregon [in the United States] and an investigation into potential output products,” Sims says it “plans to produce hydrogen for industrial use” at another proposed facility in Campbellfield, Victoria, Australia.

“Sims Resource Renewal is about creating a truly closed loop in metals recycling and a genuinely circular business model,” states Alistair Field, CEO and managing director of Sims Limited.

At Campbellfield, Sims says it will continue with its plans to produce materials for construction, “helping to increase the use of recycled materials in critical infrastructure, such as roads.”

Sims Limited has 4,000 employees and more than 200 scrap metal, electronics and other recycling facilities in 15 different nations.