The Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale will become the first member of the Rivers Regional Council (RRC) to harness energy from waste.
Located in Kwinana’s Industrial area, the Kwinana Energy Recovery plant can process up to 460,000 tonnes of waste every year.
This process significantly reduces CO2 emissions and delivers 38MW of baseload electricity to the grid.
Together with the City of Kwinana, the Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale will start sending its general waste to the new waste-to-energy plant from the end of this month.
Following this, the other RRC member councils, including the Cities of South Perth, Armadale, Gosnells, Mandurah and the Shire of Murray, will also start using the facility.
Shire president Rob Coales said he was extremely proud the shire will become the first of the RRC group of local governments and one of the first in Australia to divert waste from landfill and recover energy.
“By diverting our waste to energy production, we’re advancing modern waste management strategies while contributing to a cleaner environment,” he said.
“Sending waste to energy recovery results in significantly fewer carbon emissions than sending waste to landfill, and actively combats environmental degradation.”
President Coales also acknowledged the hard work of the Rivers Regional Council in making this initiative possible.
“The Rivers Regional Council has been working on this initiative for many years and they should be very proud of their efforts which will pave a more sustainable future for our communities,” he said.
“What the waste-to-energy plant is diverting is the equivalent of taking 85,000 cars off Perth’s roads and powering 50,000 households every year – it’s significant contribution to combat climate change.”
With close to 14,000 households and counting, the shire will collect over 9000 tonnes of waste each year making this initiative a vital component of the shire’s waste management strategy.
RRC chair David Bolt said replacing landfill with energy recovery had been “a long a complex journey”.
“We need to acknowledge the contribution and commitment of member councils over more than a decade to finally achieve a better outcome,” he said.
But he also cautioned against throwing all our eggs in one basket.
“Whilst this is an innovative part of the overall waste management system, it is important that the community continue their sorting and recycling behaviours,” he said.
