SMaRT Centre at UNSW brings green manufacturing to regional communities

The SMaRT Centre at UNSW is working to generate sustainable products from waste using micro-factories, bringing green manufacturing to regional communities.

Veena Sahajwalla, SMaRT Centre UNSW, at the Social Good Summit Australia.

Veena Sahajwalla, director of the Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre at UNSW recently spoke at the Social Good Summit Australia. She discussed how the SMaRT Centre, made up of scientists, engineers and professionals, working in collaboration with industry partners, is creating micro-factories that can localise and regionalise the circular economy.

According to Sahajwalla,“If you have to achieve circular economy and circular solutions, we've got of course, to start to see how we might be able to take all kinds of materials and bring them back into production. But how do you do that in a way that you can actually regionalise, you can reduce that carbon footprint of moving things around?”

While ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ has been the circular economy slogan to date, Sahajwalla said that we are moving beyond this, with the introduction of the fourth ‘R’, “reform”.

“Yes, we have to reduce, we have to reuse, we have to recycle. We’ve got to do all those things that we know are important to do. And we can take those actions locally. But what happens when you've got complex materials like those in our phones, like those in our various types of batteries?” she asks.

“So we’re seeing that actually our materials could be transformed into different kinds of resources and products. And even perhaps we could do that in these micro factories and even perhaps these micro factories could actually be deployed in our communities and working with local businesses.”

What this means for businesses is that local manufacturers could set up their materials supply from recycled content, 3D printed in a small micro-factory and supply this to the local community, she said.

Ultimately this means that regional communities that have never had access to production or manufacturing could develop their own fit-for-purpose green manufacturing.

“All this is pointing to the fact that we do know that it is possible to align now recycling, and manufacturing. This is about how we bring things into action. This is how we bring solutions into our societies, into our communities,” said Sahajwalla.

 “Ultimately you do need the science, technology, engineering, you need all of these skills, you need people who actually can look at how community needs can be delivered through these products.”