Wednesday, 4 February 2026

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Waste and recycling management

Rachel PAYNE, Jaclyn SYMES
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Questions without notice and ministers statements

Waste and recycling management

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:00): (1197) My question is for the Minister for Environment, represented in this place by the Minister for Skills and TAFE.

Jaclyn Symes: I’ll take it.

Rachel PAYNE: Thank you, Treasurer. The cap on the amount of waste that can be heat-treated to generate energy is currently set at 2.5 million tonnes per annum. The Victorian government website on waste to energy states seven licences have been issued totalling 2.35 million tonnes, but this figure excludes existing operator licences for facilities in Maryvale, Dandenong, Laverton and Coolaroo, totalling hundreds of thousands of additional tonnes of waste. We understand that some of the existing operators may be seeking to expand their licence to allow them to burn even more waste. Can the minister advise what the total amount of waste licence for burning in Victoria actually is?

 Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:01): I thank Ms Payne for her question and her interest in this matter, and the Minister for Environment will be able to respond with information about licences in relation to your question.

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:01): I thank the Treasurer for referring that on. By way of supplementary, the annual cap on the amount of waste that can be burnt has increased from 1 million tonnes to 2.5 million tonnes – a 150 per cent increase in just a handful of years. Should this rate continue, it will soon outpace the 4.5 million tonnes of residual waste that is currently going to landfill in Victoria, but agreements with these operators require a certain amount of waste to be sent to these facilities. So my question is: when will Victoria start importing waste from across Australia to burn in our backyards?

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