Visy completes $31M upgrade to Australian recycling facility

Visy Industries, a recycling and packaging firm based in Melbourne, Australia, has invested AUD$48 million ($31.2 million) to upgrade its recycling and remanufacturing campus on Gibson Island in the Australian state of Queensland.

The company says the upgrade is part of Visy Executive Chairman Anthony Pratt’s commitment to invest AUD$2 billion ($1.3 billion) over the next decade—with AU$700 million ($455 million) of that in Queensland—to reduce reliance on landfills, cut emissions and create what the firm calls green-collar manufacturing jobs in Australia.

According to a news release from Visy, the recycling and remanufacturing campus will feature new state-of-the-art paper optical sorting equipment that will help to divert up to 39,000 metric tons of curbside paper materials per year from going to landfill.

“This is a very proud day for our company because we’re not only manufacturers, we’re actually in the landfill avoidance business, which is good for greenhouse gas reduction as well. … As things decay in the landfill they produce methane gas, which is 84 times worse for climate change than carbon dioxide,” Pratt says. “So, recycling is an important weapon against climate change.”

The company says it plans to turn those materials into 100 percent recycled paper and corrugated boxes. The paper will be sent to Visy’s corrugated box plants, including the company’s new plant in Hemmant, Queensland, Australia.

According to Visy, co-investment support from the Queensland Government helped to make the upgrade possible.         

“We are transforming Australia’s recycling and manufacturing sectors through these initiatives,” Pratt says.

Visy says the Gibson Island project created hundreds of jobs during construction as well as additional green-collar manufacturing jobs on-site.