Consultation has opened on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a new Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and the ACT’s first Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) processing facility.

The ACT Government expects the new MRF will be operational in 2025, and the FOGO facility in 2026. These timeframes are subject to environmental and planning approvals and procurement processes.

Canberra’s recycling plant, the Materials Recovery Facility in Hume, was destroyed in a fire on Boxing Day, believed to have been caused by incorrectly disposed batteries. That facility processed 60,000 tonnes of waste (including cardboard, plastic, and glass) every year, and was used by six NSW councils. Since the fire, the ACT Government has transported the region’s recycling to three facilities in Western Sydney and one in Victoria.

• Lithium batteries caused fire at Hume recycling facility (6 April)
• Fire destroys major recycling centre at Hume (27 December 2022)

“Building a new recycling facility has to be the priority after the Boxing Day fire to ensure that we have the basic infrastructure to process and recycle materials in yellow bins,” Chris Steel, ACT Minister for Transport and City Services, said.

“The costs associated with transporting the ACT’s recycling to processing facilities outside of the Territory to facilities as far away as Victoria, is unsustainable in the long run.”

At the start of this month, the ACT Government had spent an extra $1.4 million to transport 229 tonnes of recycling (or nine trucks’ worth) each day.

“The Government remains committed to delivering the city-wide FOGO collection service, and we will continue the FOGO pilot currently underway in Belconnen until the composting facility is built to enable the city-wide FOGO roll out,” Mr Steel said.

• FOGO waste collection begins in Belconnen (22 November 2021)

“Given the circumstances of the disaster, the Government is expediting the new MRF by undertaking a single stage tender to ensure that the facility is built as soon as possible.”

The government will release a pre-tender notice about the MRF project next month “to inform the market and generate interest”, Mr Steel said.

The new MRF will be on the same site as the old facility, and use part of the adjoining block in the Hume Resource Recovery Estate. Its processing capacity will be increased to approximately 115,000 tonnes per year.

“Modern technologies will provide better sorting capabilities at the new MRF with the development of additional products including glass, plastic recovery, and better bailing processes, including for the Container Deposit Scheme,” Mr Steel said.

The new FOGO facility will process more than 50,000 tonnes of compost each year. “Food scraps [will be] turned into a valuable resource instead of going to landfill, further reducing emissions from waste,” Mr Steel said.

The FOGO facility is proposed for Block 5, Section 26 in the Hume Resource Recovery Estate.

Both the MRF and FOGO facility will include mitigation measures to alleviate potential noise, traffic, and odour impacts.

“The composting facility is proposed to be an in-vessel facility, with indoor composting tunnels minimising odour risk,” Mr Steel said.

The Government is committed to building a circular economy and meeting the National Waste Action Plan targets for halving organic waste sent to landfill by 2030, Mr Steel said.

• Canberra paves way as a sustainable, circular economy city (26 December 2022)
• Have your say on the ACT’s circular economy (27 October 2022)
• ACT Greens: Circular economy vital for a sustainable future (11 August 2022)

“With organic waste decomposition in landfill accounting for more than seven per cent of Canberra’s greenhouse gas emissions, it remains important that we divert organic waste from going into landfill and have the capacity to recycle it here at scale into valuable compost,” Mr Steel said.

The ACT Government will release listening reports from consultations on additional single-use-plastic bans and the draft ‘Circular Economy Strategy’ today.

To view the What We Heard reports for the community engagements on the Circular Economy Strategy and the next phase of the single-use plastics ban, visit yoursayconversations.act.gov.au.