By Jane Routley

The building of a waste burning Incinerator in the city of Whittlesea might not seem an important issue for Merri-bek residents, but Curly Sedge Creek, part of the Merri Creek, is right in the proposed site and smoke that contains toxins and asthma-causing particles from the Wollert incinerators will be blown all over the northern suburbs.

On the 20^th of May Climate Action Merri-bek and No Northern Incinerator Wollert held a Waste Forum at Reynard Street Neighbourhood House, to see the documentary Burning Injustice, talk about the issues with waste Incinerators and explain alternative methods of dealing with waste. The forum was at capacity, attended by a variety of community members including Mayor Nat Aboud and Councillors Sue Bolton, and Helen Politis.

The proposed waste incinerator will be burning industrial and household waste and other items that usually go into landfill.  The plan is to convert this waste to gases, ash and some energy.  Burning plastics which contain carbon will produce toxic chemicals such as dioxins. Heavy metals, and other chemicals such as PFAS will remain in both gasses and ash which will contain these chemicals in more concentrated forms.

Community members are concerned that Cleanaway, the company who propose to build and manage this waste incinerator, appears to have no plan for how they will deal with the toxic fly ash filters they produce and other bottom ash which may well wind up dumped in landfill and that they will not adequately deal with cleaning of the smoke despite promises made. The site is within 5 km of 10 schools and only 2 km from growing residential areas.

Waste incinerators of this type are being shut down in Europe and are banned in the ACT and metropolitan NSW – but here the Victorian State Government is promoting them.

Despite considerable local opposition, and dozens of unanswered questions, the EPA did not decline Cleanaway’s EPA development licence. Instead in September 2025 Cleanaway withdrew its own EPA development licence application to burn 380,000 tonnes of waste a year, while still retaining a current planning permit with a waste allocation for twice the amount. A 60-metre smokestack is still being considered for the Wollert site as part of a statewide plan to burn an additional 2.35 million tonnes annually.

 There is a risk that unless that much waste is supplied to be burned, under the terms of their contracts, local government will be forced to pay Cleanaway the difference. Such clauses are often written into contracts to ensure economic viability for operators. Once the incinerator is built, the councils will be locked into this plan by that contract.

Finally, although the incinerator will generate some energy, because it is doing so using plastics made from fossil fuels, it is hardly different from any other fossil fuel burning power plant. Building such an incinerator is surely a backwards step and directs our waste away from more sustainable solutions such as recycling.  Climate Action Merri-bek supports recycling and this is not recycling.

After discussing the proposed Wollert Incinerator, three different groups showed the forum how they are reusing waste materials to contribute to a zero-waste economy.  The Merri Menders and the Multicultural Women’s Sewing Group showed the forum how they dealt with waste cloth and Mario from Up Shop demonstrated an inspiring way they are manufacturing tote bags from polyester and vinyl hoarding covers from the Metro Tunnel project thus diverting significant amounts from the waste stream.

Links

• Burning Injustice is a powerful documentary – made by The Story of Stuff
• Climate Action Merri-bek page on No Waste Incinerators
• No Northern Incinerator Facebook page
• Up Shop Industries
• Merri Menders
• Multicultural Women’s Sewing Group