Thursday 25 May 2023
The Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR) has released an economic report that demonstrates the immense economic value of the recycling sector. The recycling sector connects with almost every household, business and government entity in the country, either directly or indirectly – processing over 40 million tonnes of material in the last financial year.
The Economic Contribution of the Australian Recycling Industry, authored by Australian Economic Advocacy Solutions, showed that over the past year, the recycling sector contributed almost $19 billion in economic value and provided over 94,000 jobs in Australia.
Recycling jobs also paid a livelihood over ten thousand dollars higher than average Australian weekly earnings, providing a high-value workforce in an expanding industry.
‘Recycling is an integral gear within the circular economy, delivering significant social, economic and environmental value. The Australian recycling industry contributes billions of dollars in economic value, while delivering environmental benefits such as resource efficiency and diversion of material from landfill. One job is supported for every 430 tonnes of material recycled in Australia,’ said ACOR’s CEO, Suzanne Toumbourou.
‘Our industry operates across a broad value chain of resource recovery, reprocessing and remanufacturing, and includes enterprises in kerbside recycling, container deposit, recovered metal, glass, plastics, paper, textile and e-product reprocessing and remanufacturing, road recycling and construction and demolition recovery.’
‘The recycling sector’s growth over the past decade has outstripped Australia’s economic growth by more than 1.5 times – while employment within the sector expanded four times faster than national employment growth – showing that environmental benefit and economic growth can go hand in hand.’
Suzanne Toumbourou
ACOR CEO
|
|
