“We don’t know if they can absolutely guarantee that none of the toxins such as mercury and dioxins can be prevented from going out the stack,” says Jill Redwood, coordinator of Environment East Gippsland (EEG), which has filed legal action against Australian Paper’s $600 million EfW project at its Maryvale mill in the Latrobe Valley, east of Melbourne.
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| Australia Paper's mill at Maryvale, VIC. |
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has suspended an earlier EPA decision to approve the project, after EEG - a 35-year-old environmental group with 400 members and 10,000 Facebook followers - lodged a last-minute application with VCAT for a review of the decision.
The EPA had approved the project in November 2018 and Australian Paper has been working in partnership with waste management firm Suez to secure 25-year contracts with local councils for the supply of about two-thirds of Melbourne’s total household waste.
The manufacturer of Reflex office paper said the plant would burn enough household rubbish to generate 225 megawatts of electricity and divert 650,000 tonnes of rubbish from landfill each year. It plans to sign contracts by early 2020 and begin construction later in the year, with the plant scheduled to open in 2024.
But in an updated notice posted on the Victorian Government’s Engage Victoria website, the EPA said works approval has been suspended:
Following EPA's issue of a works approval to Australian Paper Pty Ltd, an application for review of the decision was lodged with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). Now that this application to review the decision has been lodged with VCAT, the decision is suspended until the application is withdrawn or the review is determined.
The EPA works approval is a key component of a $7.5 million feasibility study into the EfW facility – a study equally funded by the Australian Government, the Victorian Government and Australian Paper.
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| Jill Redwood, coordinator EEG |
Jill Redwood, the coordinator of Environment East Gippsland, told Wide Format Online that the group believed the approval process was flawed. “Despite all the assurances and ‘world’s best practices’ claims, we’re concerned about air quality and how toxic waste is dealt with. I don’t know if they can absolutely guarantee that none of the toxins such as mercury and dioxins can be prevented from going out the stack.
“There would be a lot of inappropriate, highly toxic rubbish material that would go into the incinerator. There’s no way it can be separated, despite the assurances we’ve been given that they’ll eyeball hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubbish and pick things out. People are supposed to separate their rubbish and not dispose of light globes and batteries in the household waste but…everyone does. It could also be burning industrial waste. The pollution will be a direct health risk to people in the Latrobe Valley as well as to our environment.”
The EPA had failed to adequately assess the project, argued EEG. “We don’t think the EPA has done its job and properly assessed the impact of this plant," Redwood said. "It appears to us to be a bit of a ‘tick and a flick’ approval.
“They don’t seem to know yet what they’re going to do with the thousands of tonnes of highly toxic ash that’s left over after the rubbish has been incinerated. The ash could be transported to become another community’s problem. We also don’t know what’s going to be happening to the waste water, which will have high levels of toxicity.”
Australian Paper’s Craig Dunn, GM communications, said the company welcomed the opportunity to restate its case: “We see it as another opportunity to demonstrate the environmental credentials of our project. We believe that we have really strong support in the Latrobe Valley for our project.”
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| (courtesy Australian Paper) |
The paper company said the project would support about 1,000 jobs in a three-year construction phase then more than 900 ongoing, half of those in the Latrobe Valley.
“Once you’re burning plastics, you’re just running a fossil fuel power station, which is precisely what we need to be getting away from,” according to Dr Nick Aberle from Environment Victoria, another local group opposed to the plant. “There is some pollution control technology but there will still be toxic pollution coming out of the stacks.”
Redwood suspects that the EfW project has more to do with Melbourne’s growing rubbish problem than providing cheap energy bills for Australian Paper. “At a time when the idea of the ‘circular economy’ of recycling and waste reduction is becoming popular, we seem to be going backwards with this proposal to simply burn everything. It’s replacing one dirty problem with another. Just imagine the sort of solar system that could be set up for $600 million. It could almost power the entire district.”
Lawyers for both EEG and Australian Paper - bought for $700 million in 2009 by global giant Nippon Paper Industries - have scheduled a compulsory conference for May 2019.
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| Australian Paper, Maryvale VIC |
