Boxing Day Hume fire sees ACT going without recycling facility until 2025

The Hume facility was completely destroyed when fire believed to be sparked from overheated lithium-ion batteries tore through, meaning Canberra's recycling has since been sent for processing elsewhere.

A new facility adjacent to the old recycling centre had been proposed to open in 2024. The ACT government is now undertaking an environmental assessment for a new materials recovery facility on the existing site, which it hopes to open in 2025.

The wait for an organic waste processing will be extended even further, with the timeline for a food organics and garden organics facility pushed out to 2026.

The roll out of organic waste beyond the Belconnen trial is dependent on the establishment of the new facility, as the current provider is not equipped to process the required 50,000 tonnes of compost a growing Canberra is expected to produce.

City Services Minister Chris Steel said building a new recycling facility had to be the priority as the cost associated with transporting the ACT's recycling as far as Victoria was unsustainable long term.

Mr Steel said the government was committed to delivering the city-wide organic waste collection service and the Belconnen pilot would continue.

He said, given the circumstances of the disaster, the ACT government was expediting the new material recovery facility by undertaking a single-stage tender to ensure it was built as soon as possible.

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A pre-tender notice will be released next month about the project to inform the market and generate interest, Mr Steel said.

The new recycling centre will be located on the same site as the existing facility and use part of the adjoining block in the Hume Resource Recovery Estate.

It will use modern technology to improve sorting capabilities with the development of additional products including glass, plastic recovery and better bailing processes, including for the container deposit scheme, Mr Steel said.

The organic waste processing facility has also been proposed for the Hume Resource Recovery Estate.

Both facilities will include mitigation measures to alleviate potential noise, traffic and odour impacts, the ACT government said.

"Building a new recycling facility has to be the priority after the Boxing Day fire to ensure that we have the basic infrastructure to process and recycle materials in the yellow bin," Mr Steel said.

"With organic waste decomposition in landfill accounting for more than seven per cent of Canberra's greenhouse gas emissions, it remains important that we divert organic waste from going into landfill and have the capacity to recycle it here at scale into valuable compost."

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