The state that didn’t let a good crisis go to waste

The New South Wales government released its long awaited ‘Waste and Circular Infrastructure Plan”.

It was somewhat of a momentous event. Why momentous? The government changed tack. Finally! Hurray!

Before I go into any detail of how this came about and what it means, I have to express sincere congratulations to the NSW Minister for the Environment, Penny Sharpe. She did something all politicians are really elected for but rarely understand. She came up with a sensible and practical solution.

What’s the background you ask? Well, NSW is heading towards a landfill crisis. In other words, if nothing changes, Sydney will run out of landfill for its rubbish and will end up looking like New Delhi, which has multiple open tips within its city, spewing odours and methane and attracting rats and other vermin. Or, we could take a few millions tonnes of garbage to Queensland, if they’d let it in.

Mind you, we knew this was going to happen, but previous governments stuck their head in the sand and pretended “she’ll be right, mate”.

Despite our best efforts, we keep generating more waste, not less. In 2022-23 we generated around 22 million tonnes and it is predicted that by 2041-42 that will have increased total residual waste to around 37 million tonnes. This is non-recyclable waste not anything that we can reuse, recycle or assign a value to.

One solution the new plan comes up with, given that landfilling ought to be the solution of last resort, is to fast-track approvals for the extension of existing landfills. This buys us valuable time. To get new landfills approved would just take too much time and no one is willing to take the risk of spending years and tonnes of money to “maybe” secure approval for a new site, something I have said in this publication many times  before.

The plan also talks about breaking down barriers to waste infrastructure planning, which is sorely needed, as I have said here before.

Several government departments have been pulled together and an advisory committee for strategic waste infrastructure will be established (hopefully soon!).

All this sounds right and reflects years of advocacy of the industry, especially the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR).

WMRR’s chief executive Gayle Sloan was therefore full of praise of the new plan and stated that it goes a long way reducing uncertainty, which would help collaboration between private industry and government, without which nothing can really be achieved.

The really big change, however,r comes in the Energy from Waste (EfW) sector, as I have asked and argued for many times, here, here and here. Firstly, the definition of “thermal treatment” will be changed as it restricts genuine recycling efforts, as I explained here.

Further, the NSW government finally acknowledges that NSW is not “special” and can follow good practice as exemplified and proven with hard data in Europe over decades.

At some stage, the NSW government thought that it needed to have regulations more stringent than anyone else and the Office of the Chief Scientist readily obliged, not grasping that what may be academically correct can be totally impractical and actually have the reverse impact on what is initially sought.

If you think I am talking gibberish, you may want to read the letter of the Chief Scientist saying that “regulatory settings on average periods should also consider technical and operational practicability (etc.)”,  allowing the government to disregard his initial advice.

Also, NSW will use the European Union’s Best Available Techniques guidelines as reference. This will provide certainty for financiers to come to the table.

Finally, as I lamented here, there was no one really responsible for longer term and strategic planning of waste infrastructure in NSW and especially for Greater Sydney. The government has finally accepted its responsibility for ensuring this infrastructure is available and strategically planned.

And it will establish Property and Development NSW and the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) as lead agencies for strategic waste infrastructure planning and coordination over the next 50 years.

We all know these things are team efforts but without political will nothing ever happens.

Again, congratulations, Penny Sharpe!

This is what was needed!

Now, I am sure that the industry has already started pulling up its sleeves to get to work. Hopefully the government can keep track and fulfil its promising promises. If we see early success, this Government will have earned an enormous slap on the back.

UPDATE: This article was updated to clarify that the 37 million tonnes of waste predicted for 2040/41 are total waste tonnes not only residual.