Australia – radical plan to reduce rubbish in Melbourne

A high-tech revolution in Melbourne‘‘s waste disposal system could help the environment – and add to household costs.



The Age reports that dumping rubbish in Melbourne‘‘s tips is set to be cut drastically under a new plan for the city‘‘s waste. But experts have warned that more environmentally friendly garbage handling may mean higher costs for households. A report to state Environment Minister John Thwaites, obtained by The Age, recommends he create a new organisation with powers to decide the locations of new high-tech waste factories across the city. The new centres would aim to save more than 75 per cent of waste from being dumped in landfill.



The report recommends abolishing the city‘‘s five regional waste management groups and creating one Metropolitan Waste Management Group. This recommendation, believed to be favoured by the Government, would mean a significant reduction in local government control of waste: councils would still collect waste, but the new body would decide where it went.



Mr Thwaites said he was seriously considering the report. He said the Government was keen to adopt the most efficient waste management strategy possible with local government. The report, prepared by a working party of state and local government representatives, found it would be impossible to achieve the Government‘‘s aim of diverting 75 per cent of waste from tips by 2014 with existing council-driven waste organisations.



One of the authors, Manningham councillor and waste expert Bob Beynon, said the recommendations were a departure from traditional practices. "In the past it has been about recycling and sending the rest to landfill. We are now talking about treating all waste and that requires all sorts of different technology."



The planned high-tech waste sorting factories would extract anything worth recycling, use organic waste such as food scraps to produce compost for gardens and agriculture, and collect methane, a potent global-warming gas, from the compost to produce enough electricity to run the facility and power up to 20,000 homes.



The sorting facilities would also be able to convert pieces of cling film into products such as diesel and sort rubbish by, among other means, using magnets to separate steel, vibration to move paper and optical technology to identify glass.



One such facility has already been built in Sydney and contracts have been signed for one in Melbourne‘‘s west.



A fierce lobbying war has erupted between those who support the new technology and the companies that own landfills in Melbourne.



Landfill Victoria chairman Martin Aylward said tips had improved their environmental performance in recent years. The group argues that households would have to pay more under the push towards high-tech waste factories. Such facilities make more sense in Sydney, where landfill holes are scarcer and the cost to dump waste is about A$80 a tonne, Landfill says.



EcoRecycle, the Government waste agency, has put the cost at an extra A$50 a household each year, but with a wider state benefit of A$300 million. Cr Beynon, chairman of the Eastern Regional Waste Management Group, believes the increase will be about 50 cents a week per household. "I think people would pay that if it meant we were no longer just dumping rubbish in landfill."



Port Phillip councillor Dick Gross, who is deputy director of the Western Regional Management Group, also favours a new approach. Landfill owners had made "fantastic" improvements, "but it is not nearly as good as processing everything before it goes to the tip", he said.http://www.alz<>