Waste company Cleanaway says it is not planning on building an incinerator at its Ipswich site

A court battle over the council’s refusal to approve the height of the company’s landfill is ongoing at a significant cost to ratepayers

Cleanaway’s New Chum landfill site.

WASTE company Cleanaway has vehemently denied it is planning to build an incinerator in Ipswich to extend the life of a local landfill site.

The company’s Chief Operating Officer Brendan Gill presented at the Macquarie Australia Conference earlier this month.

The presentation outlined that Cleanaway is reducing the intake of waste at its New Chum landfill in an effort to extend its lifespan by a couple of years.

A court battle over Ipswich City Council’s refusal to approve an application to extend the height of the landfill, and the 5-10 years of ‘airspace’ it would create, is ongoing at a significant cost to ratepayers.

“Estimated ~$10-15 million (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) reduction in (financial year 2022),” the presentation notes.

“Impact persists until height extension approved or alternatives are delivered.”

The ASX100 listed company is worth $5.8 billion on the stock market and has more than 140,000 commercial and industrial customers.

LOCAL NEWS: Man dies after tractor rollover on farm

The presentation noted under ‘strategy’ for its New Chum landfill site that it was “evaluating alternate disposal solutions” and “exploring (energy from waste) for long term (putrescible) solution.”

The company is seeking planning approval for an energy from waste facility for its Erskine Park landfill in New South Wales, according to the presentation.

A Cleanaway spokesman said there are “no current or future plans” to build an energy from waste facility in New Chum, or the wider Ipswich area.

“On page seven of the presentation it notes that landfills, in this case New Chum, have a finite lifespan and alternative disposal solutions need to be explored such as energy from waste,” he said.

“This body of work is at very early stages.”

Ipswich Residents Against Toxic Environments secretary Geoff Yarham said there was a worry within the community that more waste companies would be looking at building waste to energy facilities if Remondis’ approval is given the go ahead.

READ MORE: New major shopping centre gets approval

“The New Chum site is (Cleanaway’s) only big site (in southeast Queensland),” he said.

“If they lose that and they don’t win the appeal they’ve got a predicament.

“For Perth, with significantly less population, there are two being built at the moment.

“Each is only going ahead because local councils have signed long-term deals guaranteeing amounts of waste.

“This is opposite to the move to recover, compost and recycle that all governments want to do.

“Sydney has three planned, all for western Sydney which are low socio-economic areas.

“ACT has banned incinerators by law, but their waste can easily be trucked into New South Wales at Goulburn where an incinerator is planned.”

Mr Yarham believed not enough was being down by the state government to crack down on waste operators not following the law.

“The supposed ‘conditions’ that supposedly control the waste industry have resulted in over 10,180 complaints through the pollution hotline,” he said.

“(If the state government was) serious about how good the controls were in Ipswich there would not be a need for (the odour abatement taskforce) in the first place.”

DON’T MISS OUT: Activate your bonus for big rewards

Read more stories by Lachlan McIvor here.

Originally published as Waste company Cleanaway says it is not planning on building an incinerator at its Ipswich site