Waste not, want not. Residents say waste to energy incinerator doesn't stack up

French multinational Veolia is struggling to win hearts and minds in its push to have the facility ticked off by the NSW government.

It's a local issue with national implications. There are some 20 proposals for similar incinerators across Australia, with four of them in NSW - Tarago, Lithgow, Parkes and the Richmond Valley in the north of the state.

It's a relatively new technology designed to burn waste that can't be recycled and generate energy in the process. The idea is to ease the ever-growing burden on landfill.

But not everyone is convinced it is safe.

From the back of her property outside Tarago Paige Davis points out the wind turbines on the horizon, which mark the location of Veolia's waste facility.

Each day, two trains bring 50-odd wagons of rubbish from two transfer stations in Sydney. Organic waste goes into the bioreactor, the rest into landfill.

"We already deal with 40 per cent of Sydney's rubbish annually. It comes into the bioreactor and we already deal with the repercussions of that here," Davis says. The stench is one of them.

"I run up and down my lane. And there are days when I just have to stop because you can't open your mouth because it gets in there. It's like the back of the throat. Last year, it was particularly bad. And I understand that last year alone that EPA got 300 complaints about the odour."

On particularly bad days, the smell gets into Davis's tank water. Some nights, it wakes her up.

But it's not the smelly stuff that concerns her most. Like many residents who call this rolling stretch of the NSW Southern Tablelands home, she's worried about the emissions that will be generated by the waste to energy incinerator should it get the green light from the NSW government.

"We want to be able to drink the water that comes off our roofs, we want to be able to eat the food that we grow, either in our gardens or the animals that we keep," she says.

"We don't want to be dealing with the toxic outputs that come from burning someone else's rubbish."

Richard Kirkman, CEO of Veolia in Australia and New Zealand, concedes the company has its work cut out trying to convince the community the waste to energy technology is safe. He says COVID has made it difficult to get out in the community to sell the concept, which most people don't understand.

The company is finalising an environmental impact assessment he says should allay some concerns.

"When we have that information, I'll be going out speaking to individuals, councils, to groups to explain what we're doing and what the impact is, which is it won't impact their lives, their health and their farms," he says.

"I don't think we'll convince every single person but I'm going to do my absolute best to convince as many people as I can."

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He says the overwhelming weight of science shows the waste-to-energy technology is safe, a far cry from the smoke belching waste incinerators of 60 years ago.

Of the studies found by concerned residents, he says: "You can always find somewhere written that there's a process that isn't safe."

Veolia operates 65 waste to energy incinerators around the world. "There are about 1500 of them around the world," Kirkman says. "It's probably one of the most well-studied and well-regulated processes there are."

One third of the cost of each facility is directed towards cleaning up the gases the burning process generates.

He dismisses concerns about dioxins making their way into the environment from the facility.

"When it comes to those complex organics like dioxins and furans, they are ubiquitous in the environment. If you have a bonfire or you set off fireworks you get dioxins created. If you have bushfires you get dioxins. It's the result of combustion.

"We wouldn't be adding to the environment that material to any extent that would cause anyone any harm."

Ash from the incinerator is used for road base and building material, the captured particulate emissions are placed in landfill.

Kirkman says recovering energy from waste that can't be recycled and would otherwise go into landfill is a part of the circular economy.

Doubts over potential health risks have informed Goulburn Mulwaree Shire Council's opposition to the proposal.

Mayor Peter Walker says his council generally has a positive working relationship with Veolia, which has operated the Woodlawn facility since 2000, when it took over the disused copper, lead and zinc mine.

"We do have smell issues out there more often than we'd like. Veolia are trying to address that," he says.

But health concerns over the company's proposed waste to energy incinerator, he says, remain unresolved.

"We just need it to be quantified, I'd like to say guaranteed, that it can't be harmful."

He points to the popularity of fibro sheeting in the 1950s and 60s.

"The greatest thing ever was fibro sheeting and now look at the outcomes with asbestos. We just need to be careful with how fast we move forward. It's a big step for Australia to take on this technology. We need to make sure we've got it right."

Cr Walker is also concerned that several Sydney councils have voted against hosting similar incinerators in their local government areas, citing health concerns.

"If it can't be in Sydney for the reasons that councils say, why should it be out here? Are Tarago people's lives less important than people in Sydney?"

Grazier Austin McLennan says it comes down to votes.

"If there was a couple of million people living in Tarago, we wouldn't even be having this conversation," he says.

He's concerned particulate emissions will settle on his property and threaten his export lamb business, which is part of an independent certification program.

"The program stipulates that we have to rear the lambs chemical-free. They can't be grazed on paddocks that have been sprayed within a withholding period.

"These lambs are going over to Sweden and if the potential particles were to come from the proposed incinerator at Tarago, then we could put the future of our lamb selling operation in jeopardy."

Like many residents, McLennan was shocked when news of the incinerator proposal emerged a few months ago.

"We've been trying to do as much research as we can. We really went into it open-minded because we're well aware we're a small town and jobs and income in the town are important.

"However, after looking at everything I can't at this stage think of any reason why we would want this incinerator coming into the town. There's far too many negatives and far too many unknowns."

President of the Tarago and Districts Progress Association Inc (TADPAI) Adrian Ellson was also taken by surprise by news of the incinerator plan.

"In 2018, the previous general manager advised TADPAI verbally that Veolia would never build a waste incinerator at Woodlawn," he says.

He's curious about why any form of waste incinerator is being floated for Australia when they're being phased out overseas.

"We think they're looking for somewhere to take this technology.

"Europe is phasing out waste incinerators all over the place.

"You look at Taiwan - they've got a plan to reduce theirs by 75 per cent by 2030.

"You look at Denmark in particular. Their basic electricity grid is fuelled by waste to energy incinerators and they import waste from England and Ireland to make this work and they're very high recycling country. But they, too, have just recently agreed to reduce their waste to energy by 30 per cent.

"Under the circular economy, we shouldn't have anything to burn," says Adrian Ellson.

A large proportion of the rubbish we generate is plastic packaging. Currently, only 10 per cent of the plastic we use is recycled. The rest goes into landfill. While Kirkman says the cost of its disposal should be priced into the products which use it, he says plastic is here to stay.

"Manufacturers are paying for that material to put it on their food. They're not doing it for the wrong reasons. They're preserving the food. The shelf life of materials is much longer. You can transport them long distances.

"Before plastic packaging you'd see a lot of people eating more tinned food. Now you can eat a lot more fresh food across the world. So there's an overall health benefit."

He doesn't think it is realistic or desirable to remove plastic from our everyday lives.

"We would have to go back to the Stone Age," he says.

"I believe that we should be able to live with the modern conveniences we have and protect the environment. We can change some things. We can reduce some waste. We can use reusable bottles. We can buy products from shops without packaging. We can do all those things, but it won't solve the waste problem for everybody."

The way Kirkman sees it, the waste-to-energy technology is one weapon in the armoury of waste management.

But the way people like Austin McLennan see it, Tarago is already shouldering a huge part of the burden of dealing with Sydney's rubbish and to add an incinerator to that is a step too far.

Every morning at dawn, the waste train from Sydney rumbles across his land, rattling his windows.

"We're already doing our part for the state," he says.

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