Waste to energy incinerators

More than 150 angry Lara residents protested the proposed Prospect Hill waste-to-energy incinerator plan. Angela Carr reports.

Close to 150 residents packed out the Lara Golf Club to raise concerns about Prospect Hill International waste-to-energy incinerator proposal. Angela Carr reports.

Next Generation has been trying to build a huge incinerator in Western Sydney for several years, but has hit a determined community campaign. Rachel Evans reports.

The Next Generation is making another attempt to build a huge incinerator in Western Sydney. Kerry Smith reports.

The NSW government is facing growing opposition to its plan to build new incinerators in Western Sydney, reports Jim McIlroy.

The people of Sydney are facing not one, but five proposed waste incinerators, writes Susan Price. If built, they would create thousands of tonnes of toxic ash per year and release dangerous air pollutants.

The community in Western Sydney is celebrating the Independent Planning Commission’s (IPC) decision made on July 19 to dump The Next Generation’s application for a waste-to-energy incinerator at Eastern Creek that would have affected air quality throughout Sydney.

The IPC cancelled Dial a Dump Industries’ incinerator plan as “the project is not in the public interest because there is uncertainty around the project’s impacts on air quality, water quality and human health”.

 

A meeting of state and federal government representatives on April 27 has set the goal of making all Australian packaging reusable, compostable or recyclable by 2025.

After a long battle, the residents of Western Sydney were relieved to hear on April 11 that the Department of Planning recommended it should not go ahead.

“This is a huge win for common sense and demonstrates the power of people when we stand together,” spokesperson for the campaign Melinda Wilson told Green Left Weekly.

“The NSW Coalition government needs to realise that the people of Western Sydney are sick of being dumped on. There is a history of human rights violations in the west.

The Next Generation (TNG) wants to build the biggest waste-to-energy incinerator in the world at Eastern Creek in Sydney’s west. Local residents are defiantly opposed and have organised for more than a year to bring Labor and the Coalition onside.

At a rally outside NSW Parliament on February 6, Labor pledged it would oppose it. Tanya Davies, the local Liberal MP, told the rally that while she was concerned, the decision was a planning issue, not a government one.

After 1000 submissions were made — mostly opposed — to the proposal, TNG has submitted its third revision.

Hundreds of people gathered for the Don't Mess With the West rally outside the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith on October 20, before marching to the electoral office of local member and Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres, chanting "community health, not incinerator wealth" and "don't mess with the West”.

They were protesting against the controversial WestConnex road project and associated tolls on the M4 Motorway and elsewhere; the highly polluting waste disposal incinerator proposed for Eastern Creek; and the planned new airport at Badgerys Creek.

Locals took to the streets of Penrith on August 5 to rally against a controversial plan by Dial A Dump and its director Ian Malouf to build a waste-to-energy incinerator at Eastern Creek, in Sydney’s west.

The rally marched to the electorate office of Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres. It was timed to coincide with an Upper House inquiry into energy-from-waste technology due to begin on August 7.