Don’t waste our rubbish — burn it
Tasmania could convert its growing waste problem to energy, explains Pam Allan
WASTE to Energy describes the process of generating energy — electricity, heat or fuels from many types of waste. Household rubbish, farm effluent, straw, and wood waste can all be processed using technology that heats or burns the waste in a contained environment.
Last month the Victorian Government gave the green light to a waste to energy industry when it released its waste agenda, “Recycling Victoria”. The policy will affect all Victorians. By 2030 they will have four collection bins, weekly food waste collections and container deposits. They will also have Australia’s leading waste to energy industry. This is a bold step.
Yes waste to energy projects are being built in Western Australia. Yes there are facilities processing some agricultural waste. But state governments have been slow to support waste to energy (or energy to waste as the industry prefers) as a solution to our growing household waste problems. Internationally incineration or thermal waste treatment is common.
But in Australia, after backyard and municipal incinerators were banned by states last century because of poor air quality emissions, we have preferred to use kerbside recycling and landfills.
In Ballarat last month the local waste to energy industry met. Overseas speakers gave candid advice on how they built support from local communities to get waste to energy facilities approved. Local industry advocates were confident that stockpiles of recyclables and Asian bans on Australian waste would enable recognition of the value of a technology that disposed of waste and created usable energy for industry or the national grid. All that was missing at the conference was the green light to get projects off the drawing board and into local communities.
The Victorian Government has bitten the bullet. It has linked the waste and recycling crisis with opportunities for an industry to treat waste thermally and create alternative energy. The Government plans to support projects that convert organic waste to bio-energy through funding and co-investment. There will be support to meet regulatory and financial hurdles. Research will be funded to find safe uses for intractable by-products like ash. Support will have conditions: projects must meet best practice environment standards and target waste that cannot be reused or recycled. Ongoing jobs must be created and communities must support the projects. Speaker after speaker at Ballarat declared it was easier to get support for their projects in regional communities after painstaking consultation with locals. The government now requires it.
Victoria will focus on sending green and food wastes to waste to energy facilities.
The industry will be reviewed in three years to ensure government priorities are being met. But the government is also enabling household and commercial waste to be sent to thermal waste-to-energy facilities. The government will cap this waste that can be burnt to one million tonnes a year until 2040. Victoria believes this will force waste producers to seek creative reuse of waste rather than just send it to a thermal treatment plant.
What about Tasmania? There is activity on food and animal waste conversion to energy. The Tasmanian Government has the same goal as Victoria to reduce organic waste going to landfill by 50 per cent by 2030 (Draft Waste Action Plan).
Tasmania is committed to being the Battery of the Nation and there is plenty of opportunity for waste to energy facilities in the Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan being prepared by government. Victoria’s announcement could be followed by Tasmania when the Gutwein Government releases its much anticipated Waste Action Plan.