Suburbs across Sydney have been shortlisted to house rubbish transfer depots handling thousands of tonnes of garbage a year after a super-tip in the state’s south won approval to triple the volume of waste it receives.
The move would lead to a huge jump in truck movements shifting refuse around Sydney, and put the project on a likely collision course with residents over noise, pollution and congestion.
It comes nine years after a court ruled that a proposed depot at Clyde to ship waste to the same tip would have a negative impact on residents, a judgment overridden by the state government.
The French company Veolia has been approved to increase the maximum amount of rubbish dumped in the disused Woodlawn mine at Tarago, near Goulburn, from 500,000 to 1.13 million tonnes a year. It formerly took about 360,000 tonnes.
Sydney waste destined for Woodlawn is now trucked to a transfer depot at Clyde, near Parramatta, before being loaded onto a train and sent to the dump.
But capacity at Clyde is capped at 500,000 tonnes a year, forcing the company to scour Sydney for additional depot sites.
A Veolia spokesman confirmed that new transfer infrastructure would be needed to handle increased waste from Sydney, but he would not detail the suburbs being considered.
However, it has previously identified potential sites near Rozelle, Botany, Emu Plains, Riverstone, Camelia, Chullora, Enfield, Macarthur and Mascot. The Herald understands those options are still on the table.
The search for one or more sites is likely to be a painful one. In 2003, the Land and Environment Court overturned the government’s consent for the Clyde depot, finding it would have a major impact on air quality around Auburn and that transport costs would be passed on to Sydney ratepayers. The then premier, Bob Carr, controversially pushed through legislation to overturn the ruling.
The president of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, Alison McLaren, said the Clyde facility had worsened traffic snarls, and called for any new proposal to be matched by road upgrades. “[We] understand the need for waste transfer facilities … but because infrastructure hasn’t kept up with population growth, it’s just going to add to the already heavy congestion on our roads,” she said.
In 2009, the Wright Report found that Sydney faced a severe shortage of landfill capacity. Woodlawn was previously restricted to taking less than 30 per cent of the city’s waste, but that proportion will now increase.
The Planning Assessment Commission approved Woodlawn’s expansion in March this year, concluding that waste levies, rather than caps, were a better way to reduce garbage flowing to landfills.
However, an approved waste sorting facility at the site, which would divert 280,000 tonnes of rubbish each year for recycling and reuse, has not been built.
The NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water contended that Woodlawn’s expansion plan failed to address planning regulations that require landfill proposals to demonstrate “a suitable level of recovery of waste”.
A Veolia spokesman said the previous cap on waste received at Woodlawn “significantly diminished competition and … choice for consumers”.
He said a methane-capture facility at the site converts greenhouse gas emissions into renewable energy.
