One of RAMJO Murray Waste Group’s councils, AlburyCity, is combining maggots and robotic technology to manage commercially generated food waste.
As part of the fascinating project, a unit the size of a shipping container is being installed at the Albury Waste Management Centre to process and recycle packaged commercial food waste.
The product is mostly expired food packaging along with commercial food waste sourced from large food generators.
The project will commence this month and run through to June 2022.
AlburyCity has also been successful in further grant funding through the NSW EPA Circulate Industrial Ecology Program to separate and recycle Plasterboard waste at the Albury Waste Management Centre more easily.
The project aims to recycle more than 1,000 tonnes of material. This Plasterboard waste can be crushed and used as a valuable agricultural and horticultural additive.
Funding will also be used to partner with the building industry to better manage the separation of plasterboard on building sites.
AlburyCity has also teamed up with Plastic Forests in a soft plastics business recycling trial to reduce the amount of soft plastic waste going to landfill through the commercial and industrial waste stream.
This will be achieved by working closely with around 20 local small to medium businesses to source separate soft plastic.
The material will be collected and transported to a local processor to be turned into 100 per cent recycled products.
The grants program has also approved funding for the Sunset on Solar program which is a project aimed at keeping end-of-life solar panels out of southern NSW landfills.
This initiative will involve partnerships with neighbouring councils to source the panels, with approximately 8,000 panels expected to be recycled during the project timeframe.
The overall cost of the projects is $477,137, with $279,000 provided under the funding program.