Shoalhaven City Council hopes to contract the construction and implementation of a new waste sorting facility, at a cost of $20 million per year. 

It is hoped the proposed plant would reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill, which was near capacity in the Shoalhaven. 

Assets and Works manager Tony Fraser said the new facility, which would be built next to West Nowra Recycling and Waste Depot, would sort the organic, green and waste rubbish from red bins, releasing the pressure on landfill. 

The waste depot, which has the contents of red bins from North Durras to Berry dumped on it, only had enough space to sustain landfill at its current rate until 2024, Mr Fraser said. 

“Council’s existing landfill site is nearing the end of its capacity,” he said. 

“The strategy we have in place to maintain our capacity to deal with the Shoalhaven’s waste is to develop a new waste cell in land adjoining the existing site, but also to divert as much waste as possible from landfill into recyclable and reusable products. 

“We are proposing to build a new processing facility next door to the West Nowra landfill.”

If the new processing facility is built, and the landfill space is extended, it is hoped the current site’s life expectancy will increase to 2070.

Mr Fraser said the new facility would sort waste in the “most effective and efficient” way. 

“It has been for a while council’s process to develop one of these waste processing facilities. The most efficient way to deal with waste is to maintain the current red and yellow bin service,” he said. 

“We do know at the moment the red bin contains partly organic waste, partly green material and partly recyclables. 

“Maintaining that in the same bin provides the most efficient way to sort and segregate waste. By further segregating it at the curbside, we take away some of the good stuff from the red bin and make it more unviable to process the waste.”

Mr Fraser said similar facilities in Western Sydney were achieving a 60 per cent diversion of waste. However, he expected the Shoalhaven would be able to divert a higher percent of red bin waste to recycled products.

Ratepayers would not see increase waste levys on their rates bills if the new facility and process was implemented, Mr Fraser said.