Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate of Hughes has some fabulous local industries operating in an innovative and entrepreneurial way to address our current pollution and environmental sustainability challenges as well as support our construction sector. I will speak, first of all, about Cleanaway at Lucas Heights. Lucas Heights is one of the three major landfill waste sites in Sydney. It services red-bin waste for almost the entire Sydney area, processing around 970,000 tonnes of waste per year. When at capacity, the landfill site will eventually be transitioned and repurposed into parkland. Environmentally innovative, Cleanaway is capturing about 90 per cent of the methane gas from the landfill site. The methane gas is then being processed into electricity on site by EDL. That's right: at Lucas Heights, we are doing waste-to-energy conversion. This is reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and providing energy to around 25,000 households per year.

Shire Steel & Fabrication at Kirrawee commenced operation in 1999, led by one of our locals, Russell Lewis. He now employs more than 30 people between his factories at Kirrawee and also down in Coniston in the Illawarra area. He has recently brought on an additional six apprentices. The company has an in-house draftsman and does the fabrication, welding, drilling, prime painting and delivery of any steel product needed by the construction industry as it builds the houses of the future. Russell particularly supports our local industry, but his business is also known as the steel supermarket of Sydney. Shire Steel & Fabrication is one of the many courageous small businesses within my community employing locals, with Russell putting his own capital on the line and demonstrating again why small business is the backbone of our community and our country.

Tacca industries at Moorebank is a business that started over 30 years ago. It's a family business, and I recently met with the CEO, Damian Tacca. Tacca manufactures plastics particularly for food packaging. Arnott's Tim Tam trays are a particular favourite. It also supplies containers to Woolworths, My Muscle Chef, the Cheesecake Shop and Darrell Lea. Tacca has a great history. It started manufacturing trays for peaches for a local peach orchard and continues to supply mum-and-dad businesses as customers—local bakeries, for example, who need small quantities of trays for cakes. It employs 100 people in Moorebank and has a factory in the Philippines where it also employs over 100 people. More importantly, in days when the plastic industry often has a challenging reputation, Tacca has been innovative, focusing on recycling plastic material for its products. It now recycles almost 80 per cent of its plastic products. To conclude, Cleanaway and EDL, Shire Steel & Fabrication and Tacca industries are three great innovative businesses.