Once again, the Sunbury community fears being used as a dumping ground for Melbourne’s waste, due to a Waste-to-Energy (WtE) incinerator plan. Waste-to-Energy is a process of burning rubbish to create heat or fuel.
The proposal comes from HiQ, which already operates the landfill site at Sunbury Rd, Bulla. If approved, the plant will burn around 300,000 tonnes of rubbish per year. Hume council collects around 10,000 tonnes of waste a year, meaning large volumes of waste from other Melbourne suburbs will be trucked in to burn.
Concerned locals have created a ‘No Waste Incinerator in Sunbury’ Facebook group. One local wrote, “This is so awesome to see our community coming together to speak out on the probable toxic future being forced upon us.”
Hume Councillor Kate Hamley said Sunbury has already taken the contaminated West Gate Tunnel soil that no other suburb wanted and should not also be expected to help burn Melbourne’s rubbish.
“Our community out in Sunbury are concerned that we will again be treated like Melbourne’s dumping ground” she said.
HiQ says the incinerator at its Sunbury Eco-Hub would burn waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill to produce electricity. However, there are concerns that recyclables, such as plastic and paper, and compostable waste may also end up being burned rather than recycled.
Hume councillors are investigating the proposal to see if it’s in the best interest of the community.
HiQ says the new incinerator will be safe and clean, but Councillor Hamley told Sunbury Life, “Hi Q’s record of EPA breaches … there is very little trust from the community the facility will be maintained at standards to prevent harm”.
In 2020, the Victorian government adopted a WtE policy alongside a target to divert household waste by 80 per cent. There has been no reduction in landfill generation over the past five years, and burning waste appears to have become the preferred solution.
The government can’t reliably predict the effectiveness of WtE as a form of waste management due to insufficient data. A recent report by the Victorian Auditor-General highlights that the last waste audit was completed in 2018. Meaning the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action lacks reliable data on waste flows.
Incinerators require hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubbish every year to operate, increasing concerns that building incinerators will undermine waste reduction initiatives.
While Australia is moving ahead with waste incinerators, similar plants are being scaled back in Europe, in favour of waste reduction and clean energy.
Waste-to-energy incinerators are planned for the suburbs of Dandenong, Laverton, Wollert and Sunbury. As well as Gippsland and Lara. The state government is allocating up to 2.5 million tonnes of rubbish to be burnt every year. There is community pushback for all, and rightfully so. We’re talking about toxic ash, more trucks on the road, and pollution. The West already has its fair share of these.
By David Ettershank, Member for Western Metropolitan Region. To find out more, visit davidettershank.com.au or call his office on (03) 9317 5900.
