Blog
Media Statement
23rd October 2025
NSW Government rolls out the red carpet for incineration.
Today the NSW Government released the first chapter of the NSW Waste and Circular Infrastructure Plan.
This is a plan to fast-track dangerous waste to energy incineration projects into NSW regional communities especially and to burn waste across the whole of NSW. If implemented, this will lead to widespread dioxin and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) contamination threatening the food chain and agricultural exports.
This is not a plan that supports a sustainable waste management system or Circular Economy for NSW.
The plan hypes up a fake waste “crisis” to justify extraordinary actions to fast track approvals for the waste incineration sector, while ignoring the infrastructure needed to create a truly sustainable waste management system and Circular Economy.
This plan is insulting to all NSW citizens, especially the thousands of farmers, families, independent experts and civil society organisations that have been working to educate all levels of government and their elected MPs about the very real threats waste incineration brings with it. We demand a moratorium on waste incineration in NSW and across Australia.
Releasing this plan on the eve of a statewide parliamentary inquiry into Waste to Energy in NSW, concluding on the 31st October, demonstrates just how desperate the waste incineration industry is to get a foothold in Australia, and the degree of influence this industry holds over the NSW government.
Greenwashing of waste incineration across Australia and particularly in NSW, is peddled by the incinerator industry and their lobbyists, some regulators, MP’s and local governments. Incredibly, the NSW government released an absurd factsheet claiming waste incineration is no more polluting than a leaf blower.
The citizens of NSW deserve the truth about this most expensive and polluting way to make energy or manage waste.
There is nothing pragmatic or essential about waste incineration. It is an industry in decline globally because of its massive carbon footprint and toxic pollution legacies including millions of tonnes of toxic ash. The misinformation being peddled by the NSW government and industry, looks ridiculous compared to the EU Commission recommendation to its member states, in 2017, to not invest in waste incineration, to decommission old incinerators and not build new ones. Instead, they are incentivising investment in sustainable Zero Waste models.
The NSW Government agencies are promoting waste incineration ahead of sustainable Zero Waste management models and in doing so will create a massive climate bomb for Australia, undermining the Federal Governments Net Zero, Nature Positive and Made in Australia policy agenda.
As the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur for toxics and hazardous waste, Dr Marcos Orellano, declared after visiting Australia recently, “Waste incineration is the end of the line for the fossil fuel industry.”
Plastic waste (a petrochemical and fossil fuel material) is the prime fuel for waste incinerators, including the production of Refuse Derived Fuels and Processed Engineered Fuels, which the NSW government is promoting.
The NSW Government plans to establish an Interagency Working Group as part of this plan, but it does not include Health or Environment agencies. Further, the industry will be provided with concierge and agency expertise to fast-track approvals for their projects.
This plan is a slap in the face for all the NSW communities that placed their faith in the government, to uphold their human rights, for food security and the rights of farmers, for the health and safety of their children and their future and for the hope of a truly sustainable waste management system, Circular Economy and safe climate future.
Serious questions now need to be asked about how and why this plan has come to exist. Full of misinformation and industry bias, the NSW Government has ignored the input of the most affected communities, independent experts, organisations and the public. Dismissed as mere “concerns”, the evidence presented on the health, environment, climate, food chain contamination and human rights impacts, deserves better recognition and acknowledgement by the NSW Government.
This plan is unjustified and detrimental to NSW citizens, farmers, the environment and our climate. Waste incineration is driving the triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss and chemical pollution. Its time for the NSW Government to reset its waste management agenda back to a sustainable and ethical path before it’s too late.
Media release available here – NSW waste and CE infrastructure plan MR
