Today UNSW Vice-Chancellor Attila Brungs opened a world-first UNSW designed e-waste plastics recycling facility, based in Sydney.
Originally designed and developed at The University of New South Wales Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT), this opening will be the first time the recycling facility will be commercially operated and used in public.
The MICROfactorie module will be based at Lane Cove, at the national headquarter facilities of electronic waste recycler Renew IT.
The new facility will recycle the hard plastics from e-waste into valuable filament and ink, which can be used for 3D manufacturing and printing. Most of Australia’s 3D printer filament is imported from overseas. They are made from petrochemicals, which are chemical products derived from natural gas and petroleum. By recycling e-waste to make the 3D printer filament instead, the facility provides a much more sustainable and efficient option.
The founder and director of UNSW SMaRT, Professor Veena Sahajwalla said, “recovering materials from waste has a big role to play as we move towards a sustainable future and reduce our carbon output.”
“Waste itself can, and must, be seen as a resource with economic and social benefits as we strive to be more sustainable.”
In Australia, 500,000 tonnes of e-waste is discarded annually, as reported by the Federal Government’s National Waste Report. This divides to an average of 20kg of e-waste per person, considerably higher than the global average of 7kg per person.
E-waste refers to any parts of electronic devices and equipment that have been discarded, such as desktop monitors, dvd players, televisions, and printers.
Most of Australia’s e-waste ends up in landfill. The disposal of electronics is foreseen to rise almost 30 per cent by 2030, meaning that finding sustainable solutions is increasingly urgent.
But solving Australia’s e-waste problem is not all that the new facility is expected to do.
“New jobs and revenue have also been created, and the technology is creating a circular economy where materials are used over and over again, maximising the value of our resources,” Brungs told The National Tribune.
It is a global first for UNSW, which is ranked prestigiously for its schools of engineering and science.