Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the government funding initiatives that will help fulfil our commitment to enhancing domestic and industrial recycling and supporting Australia's waste export ban. As a farmer, I've been conscious all my life of the need to minimise our waste, being largely responsible for its disposal on farm. Our family food scraps and organic waste usually end up fed to a chook to lay eggs, or it's made into compost to keep the veggie garden looking great. But inorganic waste was always a problem—tyres, oils and plastic items that would never break down in a thousand years.

I take this opportunity to commend the government on driving a $1 billion transformation of our waste and recycling industry, and in particular the budget commitments towards food and organic waste. These include the $67 million for a new food and organic garden waste initiative and establishing a Foot Waste for Healthy Soils Fund to divert 3.4 million tonnes of organic material from landfill for productive use in agriculture soils. This fund complements other Australian government actions in this space, including the $190 million Recycling Modernisation Fund, which supports new infrastructure to sort, process and remanufacture materials such as plastics, paper, tyres and glass. As our waste export ban phases in, Australia must look at recycling some 645,000 tonnes of inorganic waste domestically. To achieve this we need additional recycling infrastructure.

At this junction, I would like to update the House on a significant shovel-ready project in my electorate of O'Connor which illustrates how even small towns can dream big when it comes to recycling. The Shire of Coolgardie sits at the crossroads of two major transport routes in my electorate and is perfectly positioned to receive waste from a vast catchment area. The north-south railway line carries minerals over 600 kilometres from the Northern Goldfields via Kalgoorlie and Norseman to the Esperance port. The east-west national highway is the main road freight route from Perth to Adelaide and onwards to the eastern states. The Shire of Coolgardie has capitalised on geographical and logistical opportunities to propose a waste recycling hub that will process the huge volumes of plastics, tyres and conveyor belt rubber created by mining operations in the greater Goldfields region and beyond. In addition, they plan to process household and other waste backloaded from Perth, Esperance and potentially further afield.

I met with the Shire of Coolgardie on numerous occasions, and they were enthusiastic about creating an integrated waste sorting and processing facility at their class-3 landfill site. They have advanced plans for a pilot plastics and tyre pyrolysis plant, which will convert 98 per cent of the total waste to energy rich fuel and by-products without the harmful burning of emissions. To this end, they have established a memorandum of understanding with some of Australia's biggest miners in the Central Goldfields region, which produce minerals to the value of over $6.8 billion. The Shire of Coolgardie alone represents the largest mineral value, comprising $3.4 billion. Furthermore, this has enabled the shire to enter into negotiations with Circular Economy Alliance Australia to create a circular economy hub linked to the soon to be established Global Centre of Excellence in Circular Economy. The shire also has in-principle agreements with the Shire of Esperance and the eastern metropolitan group of local government authorities in Perth to sort and process commercial and industrial waste in Coolgardie which would otherwise be destined for local landfill.

Currently, WA trucks approximately 30,000 tonnes of unwanted plastics to South Australia for processing. The most recent update from the shire indicates they are fast-tracking their tyre and plastic pyrolysis plant, having received multiple responses to their expressions of interest regarding the most appropriate technologies from across the world. They have also gone to tender for a tyre shredder. In the near future, I see this innovative shire using large volumes of industrial waste to create syngas and diesel, a by-product that is truly carbon free and marketable to industry. Other by-products from the tyre and plastic pyrolysis plant will be used by the shire for road building into one of their local Aboriginal communities. Finally, the shire hope to mobilise their local unskilled labour force, providing training and employment opportunities particularly for their indigenous community members.

I commend the Shire of Coolgardie for their vision and passion for this transformational project and acknowledge the enormous work done on this project by the executive team, led by CEO James Trail. My commitment to Coolgardie is to work with Assistant Minister Evans to ensure that this project, which is so vital to the entire Goldfields region, receives the necessary support to get it off the ground.

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