Who we are

Kurrajong Recycling is a commercial enterprise of Kurrajong – a not-for-profit organisation based in Wagga Wagga, Narrandera and West-Wyalong NSW.

Kurrajong began 60 years ago with the aim of meeting the needs of people with disability so they can lead a life of their choice.

Today, we are a registered National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provider and reach all communities across the Riverina Murray region. We offer local access to creative and social programs, therapies, short and long-term accommodation, community access, employment readiness and supported employment.
Kurrajong’s recycling program grew from a one-off paper drive in 1962 to the establishment of our Chaston St recycling facility and being contracted by local businesses and six councils to process their recyclable materials. Our business focus is processing recyclable household and business materials for sale to recycling materials traders and manufacturers both nationally and internationally.

Kurrajong receives financial support from State and Commonwealth government, donations and bequests, community-based funding events, and any surplus from their supported-employment businesses. Operating surpluses enable the funding of capital expenditure, asset maintenance and unexpected business costs.

Find out more about us on the Kurrajong website.

Our people

We provide a supported workplace for around half of our 90 staff – some are part-time workers. Our people include a manager, supervisors, drivers, labourers, administration staff, vocational training officers, maintenance staff and an education officer. We have five work areas: E-waste, the Material Recovery Facility (MRF), the Container Deposit Scheme Facility (CDS), the Glass Crushing Plant and Document Destruction/Plastic Processing Facility.

Our recycling facility

Our recycling facility is located on 3.6 ha and close to the centre of Wagga Wagga at 54 Chaston St. The new purpose-built site at Chaston St opened in 2008. In 2011 the E-recycling building opened, and the Glass-crushing Plant was built in 2013. The 2015 MRF upgrade increased its processing capacity to 10 tonnes an hour. The CDS Facility became operational in 2018. A 99 kW solar system was installed on the MRF roof in 2019. Approximately 200 vehicles come on site each day.

What we do

Our services range from the processing and selling thousands of tonnes of recyclable materials each year and conducting educational tours of our facility to providing a supported workplace for some of our staff.

We enable Councils to provide households and businesses with a recycling service, prevent valuable materials from being lost to landfill and reduce waste management costs.

We receive household recycling from six local council areas – Wagga Wagga, Lockhart, Leeton, Griffith, Narrandera and Murrumbidgee. We are also receiving some materials from Hay Council.

We process seven different materials: glass, paper, cardboard, aluminium, plastic, steel, and e-waste metals, plastics and glass.

We also provide a Secure Document Destruction Service, Mixed-recycling Collection Service, and a Paper and Cardboard Collection Service for Wagga Wagga businesses and businesses within an hour of the facility.

We manually and mechanically sort, dismantle, crush, granulate, bale, bag, store, load, weigh and sell materials to be recycled into new products.

We process materials under two government programs – the National TV and Computer Recycling Scheme and the Return and Earn container deposit scheme. A total of 13 Councils send their E-waste to our facility.

Other sources of materials include on-site bulk cardboard, paper and selected plastics delivered to our facility from businesses.

We received 22 000 t of recyclable materials in 2019 from Councils, businesses and the community.

We process approximately 150–250 t of product through our materials recovery facility each week which operates five days a week.

Our highest processing periods are Christmas and Easter, followed by long weekends.

Currently, 48 of our staff work with support from our two vocational training officers.

Approximately 1000 t of product is transported off-site to buyers each month with sales being highly dependent on the quality of our products.
In 2018, we shredded 30 000 blue wheelie bins that were then sold to a French manufacturer.

We conduct site tours and workshops for interested groups to keep in contact with the community and improve their recycling skills to minimise contamination rates.

Did you Know

We market the processed commodities to Australian and international markets. This generates funds that are reinvested into our organisation and local communities.

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