In 2022, I wrote a series of articles published by The Fifth Estate here, here, here and here about energy from waste (EfW), a thermal treatment to extract the energy embedded in our residual waste and use the recovered energy to replace fossil fuel energy.
At the time, it was blatantly clear that New South Wales was running out of landfill space and needed those EfW facilities. EfW is recognised worldwide as a technology to deal with combustible waste that would otherwise have to go to a landfill. NSW had some seven or eight EfW facilities in the planning pipeline at some point in time, but the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) got really nervous and found ways to block most of those proposals, sometimes with very dubious arguments (see below).
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Instead of copying successful EfW policies that exist overseas or in other Australian jurisdictions, the NSW EPA came up with the glorious idea of prohibiting EfW and allowing it only in exceptional circumstances in pre-approved locations, which required gazettal by the EPA.
In plain English, EfW was treated like a murderer on trial under heavy suspicion of escaping, handcuffed and shackled, gun to the head. The gun to the head is the threat that any of those gazettal (permitted areas to build facilities) can be withdrawn at the whim of the EPA. Who in their right mind would build a $500 million facility with that sort of risk profile? We will see.
So far, not one of these facilities has been approved in NSW. We are talking 10 years of pain for willing companies looking at building one.
Now, in the face of a government-acknowledged landfill crisis, the EPA has finished its review of the EfW framework, which was awaited with bated breath.
What a disappointment!
There was a chance to rip up the old policy and acknowledge that it hasn’t worked. But instead, the EPA has doubled down and said, okay, we need some more of those precincts where EfW can be built, but not in Sydney!
Let’s go back to Lithgow, the community that has already said “No!”.
It will galvanise the city against the government, but wait, it’s a Nationals seat, right? Okay, I get it….
In essence, the EPA says, “Here are a few locations where you can build these things. We really need them, but we can’t help you in the approval process. You are on your own. And we think they are dangerous (to human health) and therefore can’t be built in Sydney (where all the waste is from).”
The one exception is the Special Activation Precinct in Parkes, where the government did some pre-approvals. In German, we call it “Schnapps-idea”, an idea you come up with when you have had a few too many.
Okay, so the government wants industry to build these EfW facilities. The approvals process will take three to four years if all goes well (which it won’t), and then it takes around three years to build and commission. So, if all goes well, we might have two facilities by 2031 or 2032 (at Parkes and Woodlawn) and maybe one or two more by 2035 or 2040. Will that do? No.
In its infrastructure guide accompanying the 2041 Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy, the government also said that we will need several new landfills after 2030. One reason is that the existing ones will be full, and another reason is that many types of waste are just not combustible. Have we got any new landfill proposals in the planning pipeline? No. So, we may need more EfW facilities.
Is the government going to help any EfW or landfill proposal to get off the ground? It doesn’t look like it. At least not until the proverbial hits the fan. What a shemozzle.
I really don’t want to be a government politician or employee around 2030. I can see everyone running for cover: “It wasn’t me.”
But the EfW framework review didn’t stop there. It also considered the terminology of “thermal treatment” as the EPA had heard from various sources, me included, that the wording in the policy was too restrictive and inhibited innovation. The current policy has an exclusion to allow the “thermal treatment” of waste plastic to produce plastic products or inputs for plastic products. Now, the EPA is thinking of allowing the same for materials other than plastics.
Again, disappointing. This policy simply needs to be shredded. It is entirely useless and can’t be justified. Just let people recycle mixed plastics and other materials into whatever they can make work and find a market for, as long as they don’t pollute the environment. There is no need for EPA intervention into the “how”!
The same applies to waste materials used for powering onsite industrial or manufacturing processes. The EPA gets its knickers in a knot trying to tell manufacturers what to do and what not to do, instead of simply concentrating on its remit, which is keeping air, water and land clean. If the EPA would concentrate on emissions instead of telling people what to do inside their processes, NSW might have a chance to get some manufacturing and innovation happening. Might have….
The same applies to EfW. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel and be “the best jurisdiction in Australia” with the “most stringent environmental regulations”, the EPA restricts innovation and investment unnecessarily. Instead, why can’t the EPA take the sensible route of simply looking at the scientifically well supported and well established practical solutions of the European Union and Western Australia and replicate them?
But no, the NSW EPA knows better!
Oh, you think I am too harsh in criticising the EPA/government?
Okay, let’s run with the EPA’s argument for a moment.
The EPA’s argument for regulating the EfW market in NSW was that there were, at that point, eight EfW development proposals at various stages of assessment within the planning system and the EPA freaked out thinking there might be too many. No consideration was given to the fact that not every proposal gets approval, money is very shy, and a facility only gets to financial close (i.e. secures finance) when it has a substantial number of waste supply contracts signed up. I wrote about that here. I cannot think of any other jurisdiction that has followed that approach.
For the sake of transparency, it should be said here that in the EU, waste does cross borders, and some countries exploit the fact that some EfW facilities have excess capacity and can accept waste from other countries. Not really an Australian situation.
The EPA could say, look, the general prohibition doesn’t really restrict anything, as EfW can still be built, as long as they are built where we want them. That argument misses some very important points, showing a lack of knowledge about how markets operate.
Firstly, this approach costs extra time and money. Extra time is required to convince the EPA of a location to be (a) considered and then (b) gazetted, which would, one would like to think, only occur if some community consultation had occurred and no major resistance was found. This is not the case, as the Lithgow case clearly shows. The local council is strictly against any EfW project, yet the EPA is considering the area for gazettal. Good governance? Nope.
Secondly, the gazettal process doesn’t give any security to the development proponent. The project still has to go through the Development Approval process, again costing time and money.
Thirdly, the gazettal can be revoked by the EPA at its discretion at any time. Think about that. Someone spends $500 or $600 million, and several councils enter into 20-year contracts with an EfW facility with that sword of Damocles hanging over them. Pure madness! Oh, I don’t want to be in the room when the negotiations come to the security guarantees.
The EfW policy is nothing but a failure, and the EPA had a chance in its framework review to rip it up and start from scratch, simply copying successful approaches such as the Western Australian one. But no, zero political guts.
That’s why I call it a disappointment. We are one step closer to a disaster of the government’s making.