AUG/SEPT 2026 ISSUE 133
20 Mandatory Product Stewardship 32 Industry’s fuel crisis 40 Annual Consultants’ Directory
Understanding air emissions from modern WtE plants By Dr Nathan Weber Understanding and collecting data is as important as collecting waste streams. Image: tadamichi/shutterstock.com
experts from government, industry and consulting explored how policy, economics and community expectations are shaping the future of resource recovery. While the discussion touched on topics ranging from container deposit schemes to energyfrom-waste and soft plastics recycling, a common theme emerged: success depends on collaboration, certainty and long-term planning. The panel included Preet Brar, Executive GM EfW and major projects, Cleanaway; Tony Chappel, CEO of NSW EPA; Tony Circelli, head of Recycling Victoria; Carmen Loecherer, COO Resource Recovery, Veolia Australia and New Zealand; and Rod Carr, director, Marsden Jacob Associates. Their discussion highlighted the complexity of balancing government priorities, community expectations and commercial realities while building the infrastructure needed to support a circular economy.
Waste-to-energy (WtE) has become an increasingly important topic in Australia as governments seek to reduce landfill, recover resources and generate energy from residual waste. With the Kwinana Waste-to-Energy plant now operating and several additional facilities proposed, interest in the role of WtE within Australia’s waste management system continues to grow. Whenever a new Waste-to-energy facility is proposed, several questions inevitably arise: Is it better than landfill? How much energy can it produce? And perhaps most importantly, what are the impacts on air quality? While the first two questions are central to the economic and environmental case for WtE, concerns surrounding air emissions often have the greatest influence on community acceptance. These concerns are understandable. Early generations of thermal treatment technologies were associated with pollutants such as dioxins, acid gases and nitrogen oxides (NOx), leading to public concern. However, modern waste-to-energy facilities are fundamentally different. Advances in combustion design, air pollution control systems and emissions monitoring have substantially reduced hazardous emissions. The key question is no longer whether waste-to-energy produces emissions (as every combustion process does), but whether those emissions can be effectively controlled to protect human health and the environment.
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Navigating uncertainty in resource recovery investment By Inside Waste
PP: 100024538
ISSN 1837-5618
As governments across Australia still try to invest in resource recovery infrastructure and develop new regulatory frameworks, the waste and recycling sector is navigating a period of change. Funding support, ambitious targets and evolving policy settings have created opportunities, but industry leaders say infrastructure investment alone will not solve the sector’s challenges. Not only that, but government policies at all levels make companies that would otherwise invest in infrastructure baulk at the idea due to uncertainty. This uncertainty is driven by many things, including long wait times for approvals, politicians who are unwilling to look at evidence-based cases and are instead swayed by political fallout that might occur due to those with unsubstantiated agendas, and the lack of education around how some of these facilities affect the environment. During a panel discussion moderated by Garth Lamb at the Waste 2026 Conference in Coffs Harbour in May,