What happens to your recycling in Burnside?

Published on 15 April 2019

The resources that are collected by East Waste on behalf of the City of Burnside are processed at Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority (NAWMA) Resource Recovery Centre.

They direct about 80 per cent of materials to domestic re-manufacturing facilities and aim to have 100 per cent of materials reprocessed within Australia by 2020.

What is NAWMA doing with your plastic?
Plastics are sorted into polymer types, then baled and send to Recycled Plastics Australia (Kilburn, SA) where they are washed granulated and chipped, The plastic is then moulded into new plastic products including bollards, outdoor furniture and playground equipment.

What is NAWMA doing with your paper?
After being cleaned and sorted, the resources are sent to Norske Skog (Albury, NSW) to be made into newspapers such as The Advertiser: Check out the video here: https://www.nawma.sa.gov.au/adelaide-advertiser-made-from-…/

What is NAWMA doing with your glass? 
A recent grant funding received will allow for more glass to be recovered for recycling into glass bottles and small glass fines to be used for bedding sand in footpaths and roads.

What is NAWMA doing with metals?
Metals are collected and separated (mostly by magnets), then baled and sent to SIMS Metal recycling facility in Wingfield, SA to be re-manufactured into new metal products.

Despite us leading the way here in SA, we still need to avoid, reduce and reuse as much as we can and make sure we purchase and use recycled products to ensure we sustain a market for recycled products. In doing so we create a circular economy.