Portsmith recycling facility set to be shut down at time of fire
A multimillion-dollar waste processing facility was nearing end of life and its operator had been working with the state govt to address plastic contamination concerns when it burnt down last month.
Cairns
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A multimillion-dollar waste processing facility was nearing end-of-life and its operator had been working with the state government regulator to address plastic contamination concerns when it burnt down last month.
The Bedminster Advanced Resource Recovery Facility in Portsmith was destroyed on the night of January 23 when fire tore through the Ray Jones Dr waste processing plant.
A week later the fire was still smouldering when demolition crews were sent to dampen down hotspots and clear the collapsed roof to provide better access for Queensland Fire and Rescue crews.
The facility owned by Veolia processes up to 125,000 tonnes of residential and commercial waste each year and services more than 150,000 residents in the local government areas of Cairns, Douglas and Mareeba.
But before the fire, issues with the Mechanical Biological Treatment Facility were flagged. The system uses a combination of mechanical separation to sort non-organic materials from mixed solid waste and composts the remaining organic material through drum composting and maturation.
But micro-plastic contamination of the compost end product was understood to be at unacceptable levels and the treatment facility was considered by council to be outdated.
“We were working with the operator to address some contamination concerns before it burnt down last month,” a Department of Environment spokeswoman said.
“We’re now working with council and Veolia to determine if any remediation works will be required at the site.”
No compost was sold publicly but rather provided to a single local primary producer, according to the state government, but in 2022 council stated compost was delivered to multiple customers for use in broad acre farm applications, including sugar cane.
Despite state government contamination “concerns” Cairns Regional Council stated waste processing at the site met with Australian standards while “robust testing” was undertaken to ensure “compliance with the state regulator”.
Before the fire there were plans to decommission the Bedminster sorting machine with the intent to reconfigure the bulk of the facility for waste management and resource recovery processes.
Veolia’s Bedminster contract was due to expire in August 2026.
Post 2025 a council spokesman stated there have been some “very early and quite broad discussions” about the future of the site.
“Including the potential of transforming the site into a recycling/recovery precinct,” the spokesman said.
Under the Queensland waste strategy ambitious targets include diverting 90 per cent of waste from landfill by 2050.
According to council the impending expiration of the Bedminster contract and the need to meet higher landfill targets were all options being looked at to improve resource recovery.
Before being upgraded in 2006 under former owners CEC Group and SITA Environmental Solutions, the composting plant had been plagued with operational and financial problems since opening in 2003.
In 2013 the facility was shut down for six months when a large section of a suspended concrete slab in the waste receiving building collapsed.
Despite state government raising “concerns” about plastic contamination a Veolia spokesman claimed there was no issue with compost produced from red bin waste.
“Prior to the recent fire, the Cairns Advanced Resource Recovery Facility in Portsmith was producing organic materials from red bin waste for use on farmland,” he said.
“This material, and the use of it, was compliant with our government-issued operating licence.
“We are not in a position to determine what may have started the fire at this stage.”
Immediately after the fire broke out Cairns Regional Council stated an incorrectly disposed battery had “not been ruled out” as the cause of the blaze but more recently the authority has stated “investigations are continuing into the cause of the fire”.
Queensland Police Service said the fire at the facility was non-suspicious.
Originally published as Portsmith recycling facility set to be shut down at time of fire
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