At next Tuesday’s special meeting, council will consider who will deliver Greater Shepparton’s recycling and kerbside waste services through to 2040. This decision will also determine who owns and benefits from one of our largest local waste resources for the next 15 years.
This decision is being made at a time when the circular economy, waste to energy and similar opportunities are rapidly evolving, attracting significant public and private investment, and promising to be a catalyst for exciting new skills, careers, research and development, businesses and services. According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the circular economy is estimated to be worth up to $4.5 trillion.
Council’s Climate Emergency Action Plan confirms that like many in our community, council is eager to secure these opportunities in and for our region. As recently as this week, the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority brought industry and agencies together, including council, to discuss the next steps in realising our region’s ambition for a circular economy, including waste to energy. At the same time, businesses in Greater Shepparton are investing in projects to harness our waste streams to deliver, for example, new sources of energy, construction materials and fertilisers. Outputs that can secure the future for our existing businesses and attract new industry.
And while other centres may have similar aspirations, they can’t match our location as the most important intersection in south-east Australia. We are incredibly well placed to grow circular industries and to provide the training and services others will need.
It is increasingly apparent that the first steps to realising our opportunities is to ensure our local waste remains in our region, and that we foster local skills, businesses and capability.
Greater Shepparton generates double and even triple the waste volumes of the other councils that participated in the recent Hume collaborative procurement process. This means we have a significantly larger opportunity ahead of us. Council intends to replace its “Waste and Resource Recovery Management Strategy 2013-2023 with a Circular Economy Strategy that will focus on new solutions on waste and recycling...”. It would be disappointing if Tuesday’s decision resulted in our waste resources leaving the region and hence were not available to our local circular economy — including any of the opportunities that may emerge from council’s strategy.
Council procurement processes generally include a weighting in favour of local content and industry. Unlike most of the participating councils, Greater Shepparton has a significant local waste services sector, including locally grown businesses. In fact, our waste sector is 50 per cent larger than the average for regional Victoria. Council’s waste services contract is an opportunity for council to prioritise our local waste businesses’ scale, capability and innovation, and with it the opportunity for our region to be at the forefront of one of the most exciting eras of global innovation.
For the reasons outlined, we are encouraging council to use the recommendation from the Hume collective procurement process as a benchmark but to not overlook or dismiss the significant opportunity for Greater Shepparton that isn’t an option for the other participating councils. We are of the view that securing our waste resources in the region and prioritising local skills, business and capability are critical to realising our region’s potential.
Let’s make sure that the next 15 years of waste management in Greater Shepparton are set up to extract all that is possible from our waste resources, to benefit Greater Shepparton’s current and future residents and industry, and to advance our shared ambition.