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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-09/sustainable-plastics-solutions-farm-plastic-recycling-startup/104333916>
'Every morning, Elisha and Matt Nettleton leave their small country town to
tackle a massive plastic problem that for decades has been buried deep
underground.
On the edge of country towns right around Australia about 100,000 tonnes, equal
to 100 million kilograms, of agricultural plastic is buried in landfill every
year.
It's the waste most of us never see and wouldn't know of: silage wrap, baling
twine and grain tarps that could cover half a football field.
It's this waste that gets the Nettletons out of bed every morning.
"Some days it is really dirty work and you think, 'Why?', but we push through
because we know we're doing the right thing," Ms Nettleton said.
She and her husband live amongst the natural beauty of western Victoria, but
now spend their days in their industrial start-up, a shed filled with the loud
hum of heavy machinery.
It's here that they begin the gritty work of recycling for another day.
Hear how Elisha and Matt's clean, green scheme is turning a tidy profit (ABC
listen: The Bright Side)
In just over two years, their small Hamilton-based business, Sustainable
Plastic Solutions, has reclaimed 3,000 tonnes of plastic and has created a
world-leading closed-loop circular economy for grain tarpaulins.
They've just received a federal grant for matched funding of $9 million that
will expand their operations to 16,000 tonne capacity per year and should
enable them to tackle the so-far-unsolvable problem of recycling silage wrap.
But in the beginning, it was all financed by local farmers.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
