A big blue in a small Southern Highlands town over a giant plastics plant

​​​​A proposal to build Australia’s largest plastic recycling plant on the fringes of the Southern Highlands township of Moss Vale has prompted a storm of local protest even as the country struggles to cope with a glut of waste plastic.

If approved the factory would consist of two sheds nearly five storeys high taking up 3 hectares of an industrial site of 7.7 hectares presently used for grazing near a hobby farm owned by Bev and Graham Hordern.

Bev and Graham Hordern at home in Moss Vale. Over their shoulder is the site of what may become the nation’s largest plastic recycling facility.Credit: James Brickwood

“This will be life-changing,” says Mrs Hordern, who fears not just the loss of her lifestyle, but the health and safety impacts of the operation.

The $70 million plant proposed by the Australian registered company Plasrefine Recycling would have the capacity to process over 120,000 tonnes of mixed plastic - around 40 per cent of plastics now sent for recycling in Australia - from residential yellow bins in Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra and Melbourne each year.

Locals, who have gathered 3200 signatures for a petition against the development, say the site is inappropriate for such a huge operation as it sits within Sydney’s water catchment, is out of scale with nearby industrial development and lies within the town’s boundary.

It would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It would also need an access road built to accommodate hundreds of truck movements a week.

They have won the support of local MP Wendy Tuckerman, the newly appointed Minister for Local Government.

“It is simply not a suitable site and the community and I do not support it in the location proposed,” she told NSW Parliament recently.

The Herald has also learned that one of the key parties involved, Beijing-based businessman Lyu Yalin owns companies that have been censured by Beijing’s Environmental and Ecological Bureau.

Residents are also concerned the 16,000 litres of water the plant’s washing facilities are expected to discharge in the sewerage each day might be contaminated with microplastics and phthalates, chemicals used to make plastics more durable.

The great plastic glut

What few people argue is that Australia is drowning in waste plastic.

State governments are reeling under the pressure of mountains of used plastics and are desperate for facilities like the proposed Plasrefine development. The nearest rival will process 70,000 tonnes of mixed plastics a year in Melbourne, and a plant that aims to convert over 20,000 tonnes of plastic scaling up to a possible 120,000 tonnes into oil for reforming into plastic is in the planning process at a complex in Altona in Victoria.

The glut stems from a decision in 2017 by the Chinese government to ban the importation of mixed waste plastic for recycling or disposal, citing the environmental impact of the industry.

Since, the world has struggled to find a way to dispose of its sea of plastic.

Last July Australia introduced restrictions on the export of mixed plastics, with stricter bans on sorted plastics to take effect this July.

The federal government has set an ambitious national target for recycled plastic to comprise at least 50 per cent of all plastic packaging by 2025. When the government developed a plastic waste strategy after China introduced bans a total of 3.4 million tonnes of plastics were consumed in Australia, of which just 320 000 tonnes of plastics were recycled.

The Plasrefine plant offers a potential solution. It would use robots to sort the plastics into five types. They would be flaked, washed, and shipped to China for reforming into products. A ‘stage 2’ plant at Moss Vale is proposed for fabricating products, where flakes and pellets would be melted and reformed.

The project has been presented as an environmental boon, a means to “close the loop” on recycling.

Globally, however, plastic is a complex material with multiple types and grades of polymer. Recycling of different grades has proved difficult and expensive.

Further, the process of recycling degrades quality and strength of the material, and the process normally delays rather than prevents the product’s eventual disposal.

Chief executive of the National Waste and Recycling Industry Council, Rose Read, says Australia urgently needs to increase its capacity for recycling plastics.

But she says the association knows little about the Plasrefine proposal.

“No one has approached us about this project, but we want to see facilities developed to best practice and work with communities to build trust and a strong social licence,” she says.

The head of the NSW Waste Contractors and Recyclers Association, Tony Khoury, has not heard any industry talk about this project which he said is, “astonishing for such a large venture”.

Questions for council

The contentious proposal has been further complicated by what appears to be poor planning by the Wingecarribee Shire Council.

A crucial access road appears on a map, but is drawn without any easement. The site sees land zoned for environmental living sit side-by-side with industrial land on a single lot.

In 2019, an application to subdivide the land into two separate lots reflecting the different zonings was refused on a raft of grounds, including that it was not connected to the local sewer, or stormwater and two streams forming part of the Sydney Water Catchment crossed it. The plan also conflicted with state water protections.

It was found by the council that the construction of the access road would generate a “significant adverse impact on the residential amenity and safety of Moss Vale residents living to the south of the site”.

In December, the council, which is under administration, called for a Social Impact Assessment to be conducted and rejected claims it had previously indicated support for the project. The assessment has not been undertaken, and is not mandatory.

Either way the proposal is out of council’s hands, as a State Significant Development it will be assessed for approval by the NSW government’s Environment Protection Authority.

Who’s who?

A 2020 scoping report submitted by GHD Group, an international engineering consultancy hired by Plasrefine, referred to a “Mr Lyu” as “principal technical director” who would “provide the technology and experience necessary to successfully operate the plant”.

When contacted Mr Lyu said he did not want his name published or welcome further probing of his business activities.

“My principle is this - if you are going to do something, you want to do it well,” he said.

Companies owned by Lyu Yalin have been censured by Beijing’s Environmental and Ecological Bureau. Public notices on the bureau’s website show four regulatory infractions from 2011 including air pollution, with Kelilier, a company owned and operated by Mr Lyu, being fined $6600 in March last year for monitoring failures.

Attempts to contact Mr Lyu about these breaches failed.

Plasrefine director Nanxi Zheng is Sydney-based and is Lyu Yalin’s niece.

She acknowledges notices from the Environment Bureau have been issued, but said, “He has got a lot of honours and awards as well”.

Ms Zheng pointed the Herald to a corporate credit report and stated in Mandarin: “Mr Lyu has not committed any illegal acts”.

Mr Lyu’s role in Plasrefine has more recently been minimised.

As recently as August, Mr Lyu was still being described as the “proposed operator” who “owns and is responsible for Plasrefine Recycling”.

Yet in the most recent community engagement report Mr Lyu is described as “an early investor”.

Ms Zheng says she will now be the EPA licensee, and is a “fit and proper person”.

“We have done a comprehensive and scientific environmental assessment, all indicators have reached the standards, proving that there is no problem with this location. Think about our next generation, we can’t continue to landfill waste,” Ms Zheng says.

The assessment will hinge on whether Plasrefine can conform to environmental laws and not adversely impact the amenity of the area.

Growing resistance

GHD Group says up to 140 jobs will be created with locals recruited for positions like tech support, forklift driving and cleaning. Technical positions will be filled, with many drawn from “overseas-based expertise”.

But locals remain unmoved.

A crowd of 200 residents attended a public engagement session at the end of November and raised a slew of objections.

“No one at that forum thinks this is brilliant,” resident Sam Jones says.

Mr Jones is a high school teacher and a member of the independent Let’s Get It Right local political team.

Locals in Moss Vale do not want a plastic recycling plant in their region.Credit: James Brickwood

“We are angry about the way we’ve been treated. Hundreds of people left that meeting feeling this company is up to no good,” he says.

GHD is ready to submit the Environmental Impact Statement for Plasrefine and says the project is compliant and it is “committed to being a good neighbour”.

“It will go on exhibition soon,” says GHD’s senior technical director, David Gamble. “It will address issues that are relevant and important to the community.”

But residents remain sceptical.

“We are more than angry,” Mr Hordern says.

“We couldn’t stay here if this goes ahead. But it’s bigger than just us. For what they want to do and where they’ve chosen to do it there will be irreparable damage. It’s very distressing.”

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