Materials Recovery Facility

The city’s recycling and recovery capacity has doubled with the commissioning of a new state-of-the-art Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).

The $14.3 million facility was officially opened in May 2021 but has been in operation since November 2020.

In that time, it has recorded an average 85 per cent recovery rate over the past six months, compared to 59 per cent at the former MRF

The facility includes a new shed, glass-sorting and processing plant that can manage up to 30,000 tonnes of recycling each year, and an education room.

The project reaffirms Council’s commitment to reducing waste and keeping materials out of landfill. It significantly increases the recovery rate of recyclables and reduces the amount of waste needing to go to landfill.  Improved technology will achieve high quality recovered cardboard, plastics, steel and aluminium.

The facility’s new education room – the Rediscovery Centre – offers a bird’s-eye view of the processing plant, which is complemented by the use of cameras inside the machinery to see up-close how the facility works.  Schools and community groups can take guided tours of Council’s waste and recovery facilities, which includes a behind the scenes look at each step of the recycling sorting process.

The Queensland Government provided $3 million to the project through the Building our Regions (BoR) program, and Council invested $11.3 million.