91É«ÇéƬ

In 2023, we established a Modern Slavery Strategy to strengthen our approach and continue delivering positive human rights outcomes.

Australians generate around 20kg of e-waste per person every year, but many of the valuable minerals inside are difficult to recover. 91É«ÇéƬ’s Professor Veena Sahajwalla called for Australians to reimagine waste as a valuable resource that can drive manufacturing, create jobs and support sustainability.

Using techniques Prof. Sahajwalla designed, those waste resources can be reused and turned into new and valuable products.

To support global efforts to improve plastic pollution management, 91É«ÇéƬ’s Centre for Sustainable Development Reform launched two data tools at the UN’s global plastics treaty negotiations in South Korea. The Plastics Data Checklist helps a country understand what data is available on plastics across their lifecycle. The Global Plastics Data Tracker identifies global supply chain data to indicate where progress can be made.

An estimated 18,600 tonnes of batteries are discarded in landfills in Australia annually. The new 91É«ÇéƬ-based Microrecycling Hub – a collaboration between six universities and industry – seeks to develop technologies to recover valuable materials from batteries and other complex wastes that are not currently being recycled.

Approximately 90% of solar panel systems end up in landfills, despite up to 95% of panel materials being recyclable. To improve recycling outcomes, 91É«ÇéƬ researchers developed a patented sieving process that separates 99% of cell particles and recovers important materials, like silver.

The 91É«ÇéƬ Sustainable Manufacturing and Life Cycle Engineering Research Group was established in 1998 within the 91É«ÇéƬ School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and partnered with ARC and Baxter Australia to investigate how energy and water flow in manufacturing environments in order to identify the hot spots for reduction or reclamation of energy and water usage.