NEWCASTLE’S VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE WASTE FUTURE

Since 2015, the City of Newcastle has invested $54 million into the region’s waste and recycling facilities and the growth of a circular economy – building a sustainable future for the region. In the spirit of recycling, the City is transforming its existing Summerhill Waste Management Centre into a regional resource recovery hub, making way for a growing population through increased landfill capacity and employment.

The City of Newcastle has unveiled its 20-year vision to create a sustainable waste future, and embrace a circular economy, by reducing waste, increasing recycling rates, strengthening the economy and creating new jobs.

As the second largest and most regionally significant waste management facility in New South Wales, Summerhill Waste Management Centre (SWMC) lies at the heart of this vision.

SWMC is strategically positioned to support the waste processing needs of the Hunter's growing population, with over 100 years of landfill capacity.

City of Newcastle's Our Sustainable Waste Strategy outlines the transformation of the SWMC site to a regional resource recovery hub.

The Strategy underpins a strong desire from the community for responsible, environmentally sustainable, and commercially feasible waste and recycling operations, to effectively manage Newcastle’s current and future waste streams.

INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT CIRCULAR ECONOMY

City of Newcastle's adopted Climate Action Plan and Economic Development Strategy also identifies SWMC as a key precinct and pillar of the economic development of the region.

The Economic Development Strategy showcases considerable investment from the City of Newcastle into critical infrastructure, allowing SWMC to play a key role in the region's move towards a circular economy.

It also shows the facility's ability to address future New South Wales and Federal Government targets on waste diversion and recycling.

City of Newcastle's Our Sustainable Waste Strategy aims to deliver on waste improvement programs and infrastructure for the City's residents, ratepayers and environment. Recent investments include $9.4 million to begin construction of an organics processing facility and $5 million towards planning a material recovery facility as part of the 2022/2023 capital works program,

on top of the recurrent $80 million operational budget.

City of Newcastle Lord Mayor, Nuatali Nelmes, said developing a sustainable solution for waste was crucial for the future of the planet, people and prosperity.

“During the next 20 years, Newcastle's population is expected to grow by more than 15 per cent, which in turn will lead to an increase of almost 18 per cent in waste generation,” Mayor Nelmes said.

Our Sustainable Waste Strategy focuses on reducing the amount of waste going to landfill and changing the way we return, reuse, repair and recycle resources. With the Summerhill Waste Management Centre at its heart, the Strategy will provide a model of best practice for waste, recycling and resource recovery. "Our Strategy will deliver significant benefits to the planet by preserving our finite resources and reducing emissions, while also protecting and creating new jobs in Newcastle and unlocking economic opportunities for local businesses and industry through the circular economy."

RECOVER AND REUSE

Key projects for SWMC include the construction of a new material recovery facility (MRF), which will allow plastics, paper, cardboard, glass and metals collected from kerbside recycling bins to be recovered at the site.

As there is no MRF operating in the Hunter region, SWMC is an optimal location for a regional solution as it has close access to the M1, with concept designs prepared by City of Newcastle ensuring the MRF is scalable and able to process up to 85,000t of recyclables per annum. Concept designs prepared

City of Newcastle has prepared concept designs in conjunction with site master planning to ensure the optimal location of the facility alongside other waste diversion projects, with the proposed design featuring state-ofthe-art sorting technology to produce clean and well-sorted recyclable streams of materials.

Up to 28 full-time equivalent jobs will be created at the facility alone, with additional employment generated through the emergence of downstream business incentivised by the local supply of recycled materials.

FROM LANDFILL TO COMPOST

City of Newcastle is also investing $40 million in a fully enclosed, 50,000t food and garden organics processing facility at Summerhill.

Once complete, the facility will use new technology to process the waste into compost for reuse and deliver a more sustainable approach to organic waste and resource recovery in line with community expectations.

The City receives around 23,000t of garden organic waste at Summerhill each year, which is then transported more than 90km to Ravensworth for further processing. The planned facility at SWMC will process more than double the organic waste SWMC currently receives, transforming the waste into compost for reuse instead of sending it all to landfill.

The facility ensures City of Newcastle fulfils the requirements of the New South Wales Government’s Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy 2041, which necessitates local councils deliver food and garden organics collection by 2030, with major commercial generators required to have food diversion by 2025.

City of Newcastle Deputy Lord Mayor, Declan Clausen, said the Sustainable Waste Strategy includes a mix of infrastructure and service provision supported by educational campaigns. "We're committed to increasing our capabilities for the recycling and reuse of products in order to meet the state and federal targets of diverting 80 per cent of waste from landfill to recycling, and 50 per cent of food waste from landfill," Cr Clausen said.

"This includes investing in the infrastructure needed at Summerhill to allow residents to easily increase their recycling rates, with a recent kerbside waste audit showing that more than half of the waste in our red-lidded bins has the potential to be recovered in an organics processing facility, which can then be processed into compost for reuse in agriculture, landscaping and home gardens. "By capturing more of the value from more of our waste, we’re localising a new resource stream, which may have significant benefits to local businesses and industry, kick-starting a local circular economy.”

A recent survey undertaken shows the community are overwhelmingly supportive of City of Newcastle’s plans to build the MRF and organics processing facility. "The community has told us very clearly that they support measures to sustainably divert waste from landfill,” Cr Nelmes said. "Construction of the Material Recovery Facility at Summerhill, in addition to the planned garden and food organics facility, meets the expectations of our community and will help achieve our vision for a circular economy where recyclables can be processed and remanufactured into new products locally. "As we move forward, the views of the community will continue to inform our approach for these important projects and our broader strategy."