There is another worrying aspect of the supply-side squeeze caused by the Strait of Hormuz crisis.

Beyond the rising cost of fossil fuels, shortages and price increases in packaging, building and manufacturing materials are starting to hit household budgets.

In fact, the surge in sourcing and retail pricing of some of the materials confronting Australia right now should be setting off alarms.

In recent weeks, the prices of fertiliser and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) – the workhorse plastic for plumbing, irrigation and civil infrastructure – have jumped dramatically, leading to cancellations and warnings of long-term shortages amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Data provided to ABC News by Pact indicates the cost of food-grade resin from Singapore for use in packaging has shot up 110 per cent to $US1,920 ($2,675) since the war began.

Neither fertiliser nor PVC is made domestically, as is the case with many of the finished products we need and consume nationally, so we rely on imports of materials and components.

This means the cost and availability of inputs for key investment and GDP sectors, such as housing, water infrastructure and agriculture, are directly exposed to global supply chains.

As a result, disruptions, price volatility and currency fluctuations can drive up construction costs, delay infrastructure projects and impact farm productivity and food affordability across Australia.

Yet Australia possesses many of the raw materials needed to reduce this vulnerability. Many of the waste streams we currently landfill or export could instead support regional manufacturing, domestic supply chains and greater sovereign industrial capability.

Australia’s hidden materials vulnerability

This supply chain vulnerability, coupled with the “just in time” approach designed to keep costs low, has again shown – as COVID-19 did – how dependent Australia is on other countries to keep our nation functioning.

Yet our materials strategy remains essentially unchanged. We continue to export raw resources, let someone else process them and add value, and we buy those reformed materials back at much-inflated prices.

There have been policy initiatives, such as the National Reconstruction Fund and the National Circular Economy Framework, that have credibly endeavoured to address this.

More recently, a review is underway to potentially strengthen the Recycling and Waste Reduction (RAWR) Act towards a Circular Economy Act, and there have been expansions of product stewardship and extended producer responsibility schemes (covering e-waste, packaging and chemicals) in various jurisdictions.

But a solution is available, right here at home. We continue to landfill or export the waste streams that could supply many of the materials we need to enable domestic production, thus creating a far more self-reliant manufacturing capability.

PVC, which is necessarily made partially from petroleum, is difficult to recycle. Plastic is almost entirely petrol-based.

For PVC, there are alternatives.

Ductile iron pipes offer several advantages over PVC pipes, making them a preferred choice for many applications.

And they are commonly manufactured from recycled materials, with many containing at least 90% to 95% recycled iron and steel scrap.

These pipes are considered an environmentally superior choice because they are 100% recyclable, often made from old automobiles and industrial scrap, and can last over 100 years.

As for plastic, it can be recycled, yet we import it and produce it domestically from fossil fuels.

Technology developed by our UNSW Sustainable Materials and Technology (SMaRT) Centre is now being used commercially and independently to reform hard ABS plastics into valuable filament for 3D printing and manufacturing via the Lane Cove Plastics MICROfactorie^TM, filament that is almost always imported.

Waste as sovereign manufacturing feedstock

Another societal use of recycled content is for our water, air, domestic and industrial purification systems.

These systems are everywhere and mostly rely on carbon-based materials for purification, and both the filtering materials and finished products are almost always imported.

Purification systems sit at the heart of modern economies: clean water, breathable air, safe industrial processes and reliable energy storage all depend on materials capable of removing contaminants efficiently and at scale.

Research by SMaRT and many other centres has demonstrated that some waste streams, including textiles, can be reformed into high‑performance activated carbon suitable for purification applications.

The significance of this research is not merely environmental; it is strategic.

Conventionally produced activated carbon is energy-intensive, carbon-heavy, and often imported, exposing essential purification systems to geopolitical volatility.

By contrast, reforming waste into activated carbon establishes domestic feedstock pathways, allowing purification materials to be manufactured locally from resources already within Australia’s borders.

Australia discards hundreds of thousands of tonnes of hard plastics every year. In 2021–22, the national plastic recycling rate sat below 14 per cent, and for non‑packaging plastics – including construction plastics – it was just 6 per cent.

The 2021 National Plastics Plan also says over 1 million tonnes of single-use plastics go straight to landfill, and about 130,000 tonnes of plastic leach into Australian waterways and oceans every year.

This is equivalent to 1,280 kilograms of plastic being dumped every hour in Australia’s ocean.  The waste figures for all other streams are also staggering.

In other words, while we scramble to secure imported products and materials, we bury or export versions of those materials that could supply a new, homegrown manufacturing industry.

Waste is no longer an environmental issue; it’s a supply‑chain asset.

Treating waste as a strategic domestic feedstock is not about boutique recycling.

It is about building buffers into national supply chains – the capacity to keep producing essential materials locally when global systems seize up.

The consequences of supply‑chain disruption are rarely evenly distributed. They hit hardest in the regions.

When material supply prices spike, as they have for fertiliser, PVC and now many other items, projects across the nation are being deferred or cancelled.

When metal prices jump, it is regional energy storage, grid upgrades and mining support infrastructure that stall.

Small‑scale, modular remanufacturing technologies – sometimes described as micro‑recycling or microfactories – can turn waste plastics and metals into manufacturing‑ready feedstock close to where waste is generated. This reduces freight costs, shortens lead times and insulates production from global chokepoints, while also creating jobs and enhancing local supply chains and materials circularity.

The implication for the regions is straightforward: materials security becomes a local economic opportunity, not just a metropolitan industrial concern.

Waste is one of the few material resources Australia can control end‑to‑end. Everything else comes with geopolitical strings attached.

From recycling policy to industrial strategy

If Australia is serious about sovereign capability, three practical shifts are required.

First, waste must be recognised as a strategic resource in national manufacturing, infrastructure and industry policy – not merely in environmental plans. That means aligning waste regulation, industry development and procurement frameworks, although progress is already underway. This needs to be coordinated across all three levels of government, under a national approach.

Second, government procurement should create demand certainty. Mandating minimum recycled-content requirements for pipes, fittings and infrastructure components would immediately unlock private investment in domestic processing capacity, as has occurred in parts of Europe.

Third, capital support must shift from megaprojects toward scalable, regional manufacturing infrastructure. Decentralised solutions are faster to deploy, lower-risk and better matched to Australia’s dispersed waste streams.

These are not radical propositions. They are the policy equivalents of supply‑chain diversification.

Waste is not the problem we were taught to manage. It is the asset we failed to recognise.

Professor Veena Sahajwalla is an internationally recognised materials scientist, engineer and inventor revolutionising recycling science. She is renowned for pioneering the high-temperature transformation of waste in the production of a new generation of ‘green materials’ at the UNSW Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre, where she is Founding Director. In 2025, Professor Veena was awarded the ‘Officer of the Order of Australia’ (AO) for distinguished service to science, sustainable materials research and technology and waste management.

Stuart Snell heads strategy at the UNSW SMaRT Centre. He is an experienced communications, business strategy and management professional with a background spanning journalism, government, financial services and consulting. He is also a non-executive director on a number of ‘for-purpose’ businesses.

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