Given Victoria’s worsening recycling and landfill crisis, this plan seems like a winner: “A Parliamentary Budget Office analysis shows that the proposed plastics recycling plant would cost $52 million to establish but would bring a net gain of $166 million over the decade to 2029-30. The Victorian Greens commissioned the analysis for the project, which would employ 130 people in ongoing positions and process waste for councils and businesses. … The plant could be built on vacant government land over two years”. The Greens’s proposal addresses both the immediate crisis and long-term planning, as Tim Read explains: “The State Government must act now to set up a temporary storage facility to prevent our recycling going to landfill, while they sort out this mess. We then need immediate investment in a second recycling facility using the unspent landfill levy to ensure that all of Victoria’s recyclables can be processed and not stockpiled or dumped in landfill. The revenue from this facility could go back into the Sustainability Fund for further investment.”
31 July 2019