Resource recovery

The Queensland Waste Management and Resource Recovery Strategy sets ambitious targets to increase diversion of waste from landfill and increase recycling. Our Queensland Resource Recovery Industries 10-Year Roadmap and Action Plan provides a framework to accelerate this transition and develop our state's resource recovery industries.

Our vision is for sustainable resource recovery industries to provide measurable economic and environmental benefits to the economy by 2029.

Resource recovery aims to divert useful waste and end-of-life materials away from landfill so they can be used to create new products. The resource recovery industry includes local governments and businesses involved along the entire supply chain – from designing waste management systems to collection, transfer, sorting and remanufacturing.

The Queensland Government recognises that supporting resource recovery industries helps attract new business and investment to Queensland, bringing economic growth, supply chain benefits and jobs across a range of sectors and regions. Waste is a valuable resource whose value should be kept in the Queensland economy, and we are committed to supporting capital investment that significantly increases Queensland’s recycling rates.

Previous funding programs

• Resource Recovery Industry Development Program (RRIDP) - funded projects and initiatives that divert waste from landfill, reduce stockpiling and create jobs.
• Queensland Recycling Modernisation Fund (QRMF) - delivered in partnership with the Australian Government, this program funded projects that improve the sorting, processing, recycling and remanufacturing of waste materials subject to the federal export bans. QRMF replaced and built on the success of RRIDP.
• Regional and Remote Recycling Modernisation Fund (RRRMF) – delivered in partnership with the Australian Government, this program funded projects that support local governments and their industry partners to improve the viability of sorting, processing, recycling or remanufacturing of waste subject to the federal export bans in regional and remote Queensland.
• Recycling Modernisation Fund – Plastics Technologies (RMF-PT) - delivered in partnership with the Australian Government, this program focused on hard to recycle plastics and providing investment opportunities in new technologies
• Recycling and Jobs Fund – Industry Call aims to create significant uplift in industry capability to recover and recycle resources at scale, assist with the development of precincts in strategic locations, and support the Queensland manufacturing sector.

Recycling Enterprise Precincts

In response to clear messages from industry, we have developed the Recycling Enterprise Precinct Guideline ( 2.0 MB) and Location Strategy ( 3.3 MB) to increase economic opportunities and help facilitate industrial land growth. By encouraging the co-location of complementary and sometimes hard-to-locate facilities we can:

• achieve economies of scale
• provide opportunities for access to markets
• enhance sustainability outcomes.