Australia-based privately owned packaging and resource recovery company Visy has announced the completion of upgrade works at its material recovery facility in Auckland, New Zealand.

The work involved an 'almost' total rebuild of the Auckland-based facility and required more than eight weeks to complete.

The company said that the works were completed with approximately NZ$16m ($9.9m).

The development was also supported by Auckland Council and the country's Ministry for the Environment.

As part of this rebuilding effort, Visy installed new sorting technology at this new plant.

This ensures that the facility is now capable of carrying out precise and comprehensive sorting to further strengthen Visy’s recycling capabilities in the region.

All of these upgrades together have helped increase the overall production capacity of the Auckland facility by up to 30%.

The company said it can now create a 'higher quality' output at this plant while also being able to capture more resources from New Zealand’s mixed household recycling.

Visy general manager Nick Baker said: “An incredible effort from our team has resulted in on-time delivery and an excellent standard of operation. The team continues to fine-tune the new kit and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved in a critical time frame.”

Visy said that more than 80% of materials used in this space are either recycled or recovered. This includes board made using empty milk cartons and old cabinetry and benchtops made utilising assorted plastic.

Recently, Visy launched a A$48m ($32m) initiative for the upgrade of its recycling and remanufacturing facility in Gibson Island, Queensland, Australia.