ACT Minister for City Services Chris Steel has released an information paper about producing power and fuel from household waste. It’s a topic that warrants a serious conversation. But if we want to sort the trash from the treasure in the paper, and make sure we’re not just recycling bad ideas, we need a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the options presented. Without that, the information paper is only fit for the waste bin.

The discussion paper is based on a “waste hierarchy” that gives priority to re-using materials over recycling, and recycling over disposal. If waste must be disposed, incineration and gasification are preferred over landfill, which is considered to be the worst option. The government’s stated aim is to increase the level of resource recovery from the ACT’s waste stream from about 70 per cent today to 90 per cent by 2025.

An information paper from ACT Minister for City Services Chris Steel discusses producing power and fuel from household waste. Credit: Graham Tidy

Waste management is a highly complex issue, with no easy answers. Different approaches have pluses and minuses that differ between regions and over time as the population grows.

High temperature incineration of household waste, for example, requires expensive infrastructure and air pollution control, but reduces the need for landfill sites. However, carcinogenic dioxins and furans as well as fine particulates are produced during incineration. Pollution control equipment can capture a proportion of these by-products, but the toxic fly ash produced still needs to go to specialised landfill sites, where leaching of toxins can occur.