State and Federal Government funding to support the establishment of a master planned Resource Recovery Precinct powered by renewable energy located in the Neerabup Industrial Area. Using best practice design principles, the 30.4ha precinct owned freehold by the City of Wanneroo will include:

• Waste to energy;
• Materials recovery;
• Organics (FO/GO);
• Battery storage, substation and adjacent solar farm;
• Waste transfer station;
• Community recycling centre;
• Leasehold opportunities for related industries and users of waste as a resource; and
• Opportunities to incorporate education, training, research, and development.

The development of a waste resource recovery precinct within the Neerabup Industrial Estate provides potential opportunity for the City and its partners to manage the resources present within residents’ waste materials. This would mean that waste would be managed in a more environmentally sustainable manner aligned to the State Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030 Action Plan.

The WA Strategy has three main themes of Avoid, Recover and Protect. The precinct will meet the recover and protect objectives with the City taking action through its Waste Education Plan 2018 to support the community to avoid generating waste. The City has seen a waste reduction of greater than 10% in the generation of waste per capita meeting the 2025 target for the Plan early.

Such a waste precinct is essential if the State is to reach the target set in the WA Strategy of no more than 15% of Perth Peel generated waste to go to landfill. There are currently no resource recovery facilities of the required type in the northern growth corridor of the Perth Metropolitan area (refer map above) For example, the Cities of Wanneroo, Swan and Joondalup despite extensive procurement actions have been unable to source a viable organics recycling facility.

For the three LG’s to meet the State’s Waste Recovery target of 70% by 2025 and 75% by 2030 they require access to facilities that use proven technologies that maximise the recovery of valuable resources within waste materials. To do this, private sector investment and engagement is crucial along with research and innovation driven development working with the LG who control the waste collection inputs.

In August 2020, the WA Auditor General released a report on Waste Management Service delivery, which stated:

“Given recent international export bans on recyclable materials, the planning and development of local recycling facilities within the state is becoming increasingly urgent to help provide certainty to stakeholders, create opportunities for local recycling industries, and protect our local environments and public health.

I encourage all LG entities to consider findings in this report. Making a concerted effort to use available practices to avoid and recover more waste is the key to continuing to improve the State’s waste and recycling performance.”

Source: Western Australia’s Auditor General Report August 2020. Waste Management Service Delivery.

Through currently available waste management options, the City of Wanneroo is required to dispose of approximately 50% of its waste to Mindarie Regional Councils’ (MRC) Tamala Park Landfill, which is located within the City’s boundary. This landfill has a remaining operational lifespan of approximately 8 years.

The feasibility study must also assess whether such a waste precinct as Neerabup would be seen as a ‘significant development’ under the new Part 17 of the Planning and Development Act 2005. The report highlighted that the City’s residents are forecast to produce 30,000tpa of comingled recyclables, 95,000tpa of general waste and over 5,000tpa of green waste by 2041.

Source: Approvals Review - Waste Infrastructure, 11 August 2020. Encycle Consulting Perth WA

• The rapid growth of the northern corridor equates to growth in waste, recycling and greens materials. Most of this growth will be within the City of Wanneroo with the estimated population to grow from 235,994 in 2024 to 437,016 by 2046
• End of life for existing waste facility Tamala Park is rapidly approaching estimated to be in late 2028. Tamala Park currently services an estimated population of 750,000 comprised of households and businesses, from the seven member councils that make up the Mindarie Regional Council
• The industry is experiencing fundamental changes to the way waste is viewed and processed, requiring new thinking, new technology, adoption of circular economy principles and using waste as a resource
• A precinct of this scale is required in order for the City and our LGA partners to meet waste targets set by State Government in the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030
• Economies of scale/efficiencies achieved by co-locating the users of waste resource streams with the collection, sorting and processing facilities
• The precinct will be an enabler to the circular economy providing a catalyst for private investment and an incubator for innovative solutions to waste by bringing together collection, recovery, processing and value adding
• No such facility is operating or planned for the northern suburbs
• Potential for the whole facility and the neighbouring Neerabup Industrial Estate to be operated by an embedded energy supply, powered by the solar farm and waste to energy plant