Simon Corbell is explaining his plans for waste disposal which do not include a green waste bin, but do include new Material Recovery Facilities, which we think is what normal people call a tip.
“The ACT Government has identified three key measures in the new ACT Waste Strategy 2011-2025 to divert over 120,000 tonnes of waste per year from the ACT’s existing landfill sites,” Mr Corbell said.
These three measures are:
1) The construction of a Residual Waste Materials Recovery Facility (Residual Waste MRF) which can sort and collect organic waste such as food scraps from the existing smaller green household rubbish collection service. This is expected to recover around 53,000 tonnes of waste per year by 2021.
2) The construction of a Mixed Commercial Waste Material Recovery Facility (Commercial MRF) which will sort and collect glass , plastics and paper from the office, retail, hotel and hospitality sectors. This is expected to recycle up to 70,000 tonnes of waste per year by 2014.
3) Further actions to enable the development of energy-from-waste facilities to produce renewable “bioenergy” through the conversion of woodwaste , dirty paper, fabrics and other materials. Up to 20% of existing waste to landfill could be beneficially used through use of these technologies.
But as for a third bin, Simon is resolute his plan is better:
“This analysis highlights that a third bin service for either food waste or garden waste would cost significantly more to operate and cost more per tonne of GHG abated than the Residual MRF. To deliver the most efficient option to collect organic waste from household, the residual MRF option has been chosen” Mr Corbell said.
UPDATE: The Greens’ are not convinced Simon’s done his sums right:
ACT Greens TAMS Spokesperson, Caroline Le Couteur MLA, says that the Government has ignored the potential benefits of source separation of organic waste.
“With the release of the new Waste Strategy, the concern now is that the Government is not prioritising source separation which leads to higher quality products and better environmental outcomes,” Ms Le Couteur said.
“It seems that the Government is set on investing in a dirty MRF, a clean MRF and a waste-to energy plant for wood waste products.
“The consultancy report states that the quality of end-products which would come from a dirty MRF are expected to be much lower than what could be achieved through the current composting process, and certainly much lower quality than source separation.
“We are also concerned about the way that the costings for a third bin have been assessed. The potential reduced costs of landfill waste collection does not appear to be part of the calculations.