By Anya Phelan, The University of Queensland This week the federal government joined an international agreement to recycle or reuse 100% of plastic waste by 2040, putting an end to plastic pollution. But major obstacles stand in the way. The most recent is the collapse of Australia’s largest soft plastic recycling program, REDcycle. The program…
Australian packaging and recycling giant Visy has begun construction on a new $500 million glass manufacturing and recycling facility on Queensland’s Gold Coast. The new site, in Stapylton, will create about 600 jobs during construction, 200 new full-time ‘green collar’ manufacturing jobs, and aims to produce around 1 billion bottles a year with the potential…
Victoria backs low carbon manufacturing Businesses are being supported to upskill and capitalise on opportunities to manufacture low carbon products, with a new Low Carbon Manufacturing Grant Program announced by the Victorian government. The $7 million program will help Victorian businesses become more competitive in a low carbon economy, while strengthening the state’s supply chain…
By Milena Bojovic, Macquarie University The global dairy industry is changing. Among the disruptions is competition from food alternatives not produced using animals – including potential challenges posed by synthetic milk. Synthetic milk does not require cows or other animals. It can have the same biochemical make up as animal milk, but is grown using…
By Ian A. MacKenzie, The University of Queensland Could Australia soon have a form of emissions trading? Yes, if Labor’s much-anticipated paper on fixing Australia’s mediocre emissions-reduction framework, released today, is any guide. At present, Australia relies on the controversial safeguard mechanism to encourage big emitters such as fossil fuel power plants and manufacturers to…
Developer Thrive Construct recently announced the world’s tallest steel-timber hotel to be built at Victoria Square, Adelaide. Australia has caught onto the trend of building taller in timber, with other plans for three buildings 180-220 metres high submitted in Perth and Sydney. These would more than double the current world record for a timber building.
By Tina Soliman Hunter, Macquarie University and Madeline Taylor, Macquarie University You can thank Margaret Thatcher for the gas supply crunch Australia’s east coast has been plunged into. As UK prime minister, Thatcher led the charge to kick the government out of the economy and allow the market to rule. In Australia, governments took up…
Australian defence contractor Nova Systems led a meeting of defence SMEs at the recent Indo Pacific Maritime exposition, to discuss defence industry policy. Here, Rebecca Humble argues that policy settings are not succeeding in growing small SMEs into larger ones, and larger ones to the scale where they can compete against foreign companies and bid…
ADVERTISING FEATURE Today we get an update from the series sponsor of our Packaging, process and progress series, SMC Corporation, from the floor of this week’s AUSPACK 2022 expo. SMC Corporation Australia New Zealand demonstrated its latest generation of heavy-duty electric actuators, the LEY100 series, in an interactive and eye-catching demo unit during AUSPACK 2022. The…
Most politicians vocally support Australian-made products. Manufacturing certainly provides excellent opportunities for candidates in high-vis to make election campaign announcements.
