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Liverpool City Council is operating a new Green Ceramics MICROfactorieTM using UNSW SMaRT Centre's recycling technology.
The collaboration with the council means SMaRT's ceramics technology is being used by a second NSW council, after Shaolhaven City Council established a MICROfactorieTM as part of its sustainability program.
Liverpool City Council said: "Through partnership with Prof. Sahajwalla and the UNSW SMaRT Centre, Liverpool has transformed a costly waste problem into a circular economy success story.
"Discarded mattresses that once went to landfill are now being shredded and re-manufactured into durable, low-carbon green ceramic tiles made from waste textiles and glass.
"These tiles are supporting local manufacturing, reducing waste management costs, and showing how innovation can turn waste into a valuable resource."
Veena said: “True sustainability demands we harness this potential and transform waste into a resource stream for advanced manufacturing.
"A few years back, Liverpool council hired Tim Pasley to head up their circular economy department.
"Tim was going through the council’s budget and was shocked to learn that Liverpool was spending a lot every year to get rid of discarded mattresses.
"Residents in the council area discard thousands, tens of thousands of mattresses every year. Liverpool is not unique in that, I must stress.
"Every council spends vast sums on dealing with waste, and mattresses are a big issue.
"We worked with Liverpool council to build one of these microfactories, which is now successfully producing green ceramics using a portion of the LGA’s waste resources.
"It’s not energy intensive, it didn’t require huge capital outlays, and it helps the council save on one of its biggest budget line-items.
"Liverpool Council wants to commercialise this process, to sell the products to other councils and the public, earn a profit on behalf of ratepayers, as well as deal with more and more of their waste."
The Liverpool example is just one from a number of waste to product, remanufcturing technologies Veena spoke of recently in an address to the National Press Club of Australia.
Read The West Australian / AAP news story
Listen to Veena on ABC Radio (from 16:27)
In communities across Australia, her team’s pioneering MICROfactory technologies are already showing what this future looks like.
In Taree in regional NSW, reclaimed aluminium is being reformed into new aerosol cans. While in Sydney’s north, e-waste is being remanufactured into 3D printing filament.
“Using our waste resources as feedstock develops a circular economy where supply chains are linked up and local jobs are created, with significant environmental and social benefits,” she said.
Prof. Sahajwalla is Director of UNSW’s Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre, which is internationally recognised for pioneering the concept of ‘MICROfactories’. The SMaRT Centre is home to MICROfactories technology, turning small, modular recycling systems that transform discarded products such as mattresses, glass, textiles, and electronic waste into valuable materials and products.
Her team’s work with councils and industry partners shows how this transformation is already taking shape.
The Council bought an industrial shredder to process discarded mattresses into fluff. Then at the SMaRT Centre, Prof. Sahajwalla developed a technique which takes the fluff, mixes it with other waste products like broken glass and transforms them into tiles. What was once an expensive waste stream is now a resource: the council is producing durable, low-carbon ‘green ceramic’ tiles made from waste textiles and glass.
“It’s a tile and does everything you’d expect from a tile. It meets or exceeds Australian regulations, and you can use it anywhere you’d use a normal tile - floor tiles, kitchen back-splashes, council conference rooms,” Prof. Sahajwalla said.
Working with industry and communities
Prof. Sahajwalla’s Green Steel and Green Aluminium technologies are being used by industry partners. At JamesStrong Packaging in Taree, NSW, a new casting line uses reclaimed aluminium feedstock, produced through UNSW’s MICROfactory technology.
“They produce 100 million aerosol cans every year, and soon a growing portion of that will come from reclaimed materials, making JamesStrong one of the first aluminium can producers in the world to do this,” Prof. Sahajwalla said.
She also outlined a vision in which MICROfactories could be established in cities, towns and regional communities across the country, each tailored to local waste streams and employment needs.
In regional NSW, her team is working with the Aboriginal community in Wellington near Dubbo to use green ceramic tiles in sustainable housing projects, supported by the federal government’s Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub (SCaW).
Turning university research into real-world impact
Prof. Sahajwalla said Australia must do more to ensure university research translates into real-world impact. She called for governments to lead by example in adopting Australian-made sustainable technologies, and to reward companies that invest in local R&D.
“By and large, our professional incentives are not geared towards the long-hours it takes to actually build the machine that can make a world-saving idea a reality,” Prof. Sahajwalla said.
“We’re judged within the academy on the prestige of the journals in which our research appears, the citations that research generates, and the amount of grant funding we can draw in.”
“We have to buy what we’re inventing, set ambitious targets for the use of Australian innovations, because unless we create value then our very clever inventions aren’t worth a thing. We need to make sure government departments are using Australian tech, and that we reward companies that invest in Australian R&D with preferential consideration in government tenders.”