The City of Ballarat has welcomed today’s announcement of Victorian Government funding for research and expansion of local recycling and manufacturing.
In the latest announcement related to Victoria’s greatly anticipated Circular Economy Policy, $100 million will go towards building a local recycling and manufacturing system.
As the capital of Western Victoria, Ballarat is best positioned in the state to leverage this opportunity and continue to lead the way in resource innovation and management.
The City of Ballarat has been working towards a circular economy approach for over seven years and supports the Victorian Government’s position to advance this to the next steps and build a home-grown and lasting recycling system for Victoria.
The City of Ballarat is delighted that the Victorian Government’s indicative approach to Waste to Energy is aligned with our long-established view that it’s a process that can be used to reduce waste to landfill and potentially provide base load energy for industry.
The City of Ballarat has taken a systems-based view of how we manage resources and waste.
We have a business case in place for a Business Innovation Centre that is based on minimising waste and extracting maximum value from resources and building a new industry and associated business opportunities. We want to maximise reuse, recycling, remanufacturing of resources, and ensure that there is productive use for any residual waste through a energy recovery facility.
Significant work over a number of years with international leaders in the circular economy makes Ballarat ready and able to quickly respond to this new opportunity.
Key to enabling the city’s transition to a more circular economy is the All Waste Interchange proposed at the Ballarat West Employment Zone. This facility will enable us to manage our waste in a way that maximises recycling and remanufacturing and minimises waste to landfill.
Ballarat Mayor Cr Ben Taylor said the City of Ballarat is already a leader in this space with an early bold move to remove glass from its recycling bins and trialing the use of glass in road base.
“The City of Ballarat will be advancing with an expression of interest to industry to partner in innovative testing and trials for recycling and resource recovery projects.”
“We know our community wants us to lead in advancing sustainable practices and the City of Ballarat has a 100% zero emissions and carbon neutrality target in place.”
“The proposed waste to energy recovery plant, which Council has been researching and planning for the past seven years, will divert a significant proportion of the city’s landfill waste into an affordable and secure energy source for industry, reduce carbon emissions and decrease the current regional landfill’s environmental impacts.”
“We have business case in place for a business innovation centre to develop new technologies and collaborate on creative solutions to waste challenges. We look forward to speaking with the government and seeing this progress in Ballarat.”
