When Narrabri cotton farmers Dale and Helen Smith decided in 2013 to set up one of Australia’s only plastic recycling plants, despite having no previous experience in the fickle recycling industry, there were no shortage of doubters.

Narrabri-based NAB Banker James Pitman wasn’t among them.

Having worked closely with the Smiths for many years, he knew what they were capable of and put together a  finance package to help them get the plant online in the North West NSW town.

“For something like this to get going, you’re always going to have to take a risk,” James says. “For farmers, risk is part of the game.”

A little over a decade later, Australian Recycled Plastics has proven the doubters wrong. “The biggest motivator is when someone tells you it can’t be done,” Dale says.

Their plant now processes upwards of 400 tonnes of recycled plastics per month – purchased from local governments that pick it up from kerbside recycling bins. It’s cleaned, sorted and ground into various grades of plastic flake, which is then turned into supermarket meat trays, plastic drink bottles and decking, among many other uses.

“One of our end users won a contract to supply a major supermarket chain with all their clear meat trays,” Dale says. “The meat is now packaged in 100 per cent recycled product and we’re their only supplier in Australia for the raw material.”

In other words, Australian Recycled Plastics is now an indispensable link in a predominantly circular economy for many forms of recyclable plastic, enabling the raw product to be used over and again.

Dale concedes his initial cost calculations and timeframe to install the machinery and refine the process – were a little ambitious. “We thought, ‘This’ll be pretty quick’,” he recalls.

Eighteen months and , Dale and Helen finally achieved a viable end product. “We got to a point where if we wanted to keep going and get to the level where we needed to be, we had to throw another million dollars at another machine just to refine that process and get it right,” Dale says.

Now, with an annual turnover of around $8 million, a steady workforce of 30 Narrabri locals and a vital role in Australia’s recycling industry, the Smith’s faith in themselves – and that shown by NAB Agribusiness – is paying off handsomely.

“Dale just gets it done,” James says. “He’s a bloke with ideas who makes it work.”