Australia – Garbage to gold study indicates value of waste treatment

A study released by sustainability consultancy Nolan-ITU shows that treating waste rather than burying it in landfill can produce more than A$740 million worth of environmental benefits pa for Australia,.



The “Triple Bottom Line Assessment of the UR-3R Process” examined the economic, environmental, and social performance of a new waste treatment plant soon to be launched by the New South Wales (NSW) Government.



Global Renewables‘‘ UR-3R facility at Eastern Creek in Sydney‘‘s west will convert 175,000 tonnes of household garbage into useful products such as compost, energy, and recyclable packaging.



Nolan-ITU undertook an independent evaluation, using international standards, of the costs/benefits of an Australia-wide roll-out of UR-3R facilities to all major population centres. “This study shows that it is possible to recover value from what our society has previously thought of as waste. If the major population centres of Australia had access to a similar alternative to landfill disposal of household garbage, there would be an environmental benefit of up to A$740 million pa, or around A$160 pa per household,” Mr Hannes Partl, Nolan-ITU‘‘s Director, said. On a population centre basis, the environmental benefits per household per year of the landfill alternative are:

Sydney: A$170

Melbourne: A$125

ACT: A$100

Perth: A$200

Adelaide: A$140

Brisbane: A$180

Gold Coast: A$200

Newcastle: A$185

“Clearly, it‘‘s in the interest of Australia‘‘s future to build infrastructure that conserves, rather than wastes, resources”, Partl, who has worked on projects in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, said.



The study further determined that the processing of waste through UR-3R facilities would increase Australia‘‘s recovery of dry recyclable materials by an estimated 42% (from 847,000 tonne per year to 1.20 million tonne per year). The macro economic benefits of national roll-out of UR-3R facilities was also found to be significant, potentially providing 1,780 full time equivalent jobs and contributing A$140 million to the national economy.