Construction waste recovery facility to open in Brisbane

This post was originally published on Sustainability Matters

Rino Recycling is set to open its $95m high-tech waste recycling facility that is located on an 8-hectare site in the Brisbane town of Pinkenba in Queensland.

The 4000 m² fully automated recycling plant is designed to turn construction and demolition waste into recycled material, which can then be used on new infrastructure projects.

Rino Recycling General Manager Dan Blaser said the site can process up to 475 tonnes an hour — including material such as concrete, excavation waste, construction and demolition waste (C&D), raw dirty fill, skip bin waste and vacuum waste & non-destructive digging (NDD) waste.

“This plant has scale, capacity and efficiency — it can recycle more than 1.5 million tonnes of waste with 97% recovery annually whilst producing high-quality products such as aggregates, sand and road bases to the equivalent standard of quarried material but with significant environmental benefits,” Blaser said.

“In under 20 minutes, a truck can go from offloading construction waste and leave with a new load of high-quality, recycled products ready for the job site. It is a green, circular economy in action.

“This puts in place the infrastructure for developers and all levels of government to adopt a ‘recycled first’ policy when it comes to construction and waste management.”

The recovery centre is claimed to be the world’s largest recycling facility under the one roof (for volume) and the first of its kind globally. Based on an independent report, it’s estimated the new recycling facility will help reduce carbon emissions by 55,000 tonnes per year.

Rino Recycling’s Director, Todd Pepper, said the new facility could help Queensland lift its recycling rate from 68 to 75%, by recovering 97% of the material fed into the plant.

“We are helping decarbonise through recycling waste and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the number of truck movements on the road,” Pepper said.

“The new facility is 13 kilometres from the CBD, so trucks have less distance to travel, and we are replacing the need to have to go to landfill sites west of the city, like Swanbank in Ipswich.”

The plant has an acre of rooftop solar panels for energy efficiency and recycles 35 thousand litres of water every hour, making it ‘water neutral’.

The Green Star Certified plant has an expected opening date of late November 2023.

Top image caption from left to right: Ed Bull, Director; Richard Jacobitz, CFO; Daniel Baser, General Manager; and Todd Pepper, Director at Rino Recycling.