• October 19, 2020
• By Jackson
• News

Jackson Environment and Planning Pty Ltd has obtained a planning approval for an advanced dry waste recycling facility for McDougalls Hill, two kilometres west of Singleton, in the growing Hunter region of New South Wales. The project was approved by the Hunter and Central Coast Joint Regional Planning Panel in September 2020.

The Singleton Recycling Facility will receive, sort and recycle up to 95,000 tonnes per annum of dry municipal, commercial and construction waste, helping to reduce the pressure on local landfills and creating up to 20 local jobs. The project will also contribute $190 million into the local economy over the next 20 years.

The development will provide a broad range of recycling options and will help drive progress towards the NSW Government’s recycling targets. It will also deliver on key priorities of the NSW Government to develop new recycling infrastructure to boost the recovery of municipal, commercial and construction waste in the Hunter region.

Recycling rates in the Hunter are low, with limited recycling facilities to help residents, businesses and builders recycle better. The recycling rate in the region is 44%. A huge amount of work is needed to reach the NSW Government recycling targets of 70% for household and business waste, and 80% for construction waste by 2021.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority is responsible for managing the State’s recycling infrastructure strategy. In the Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Strategy, the Hunter and Central Coast has a shortfall of 461,000 tonnes per year of recycling capacity for building waste materials to meet the State recycling target of 80% by 2021. At the moment, much of this waste is sent to landfill.

The approved facility will help to address the gap in recycling services in the Hunter. It will also be one of the most highly performing facilities in NSW from an environmental point of view. All recycling operations will be done within an architecturally designed warehouse building, which is fully sprinklered, with a basement car park and an automated process to sort and recover materials. The building will also include a 100 kW solar array to sustainably provide for all electricity needs.

The Singleton Recycling Facility includes four key functional areas:

• A Community Recycling Centre for household problem wastes, such as paints, oils, gas bottles. The centre also allows the drop-off of materials for recycling by householders, such as mattresses and tyres; paper / cardboard; metals; glass; garden organics and wood / timber.
• A tipping and sorting area for a range of household, business and building waste generally collected through skip bin operations or by commercial contractors.
• An advanced sorting and processing facility to sort and recover mixed building materials.
• A product manufacturing area for landscaping and civil supplies.

The facility will include education rooms for schools and the broader community to learn about recycling, and how recycling can support sustainable communities.

The development application has been led by the Jackson Environment and Planning team for Eco Logic Developments Pty Ltd. We carried out all statutory planning assessments, including the preliminary hazard analysis, environmental risk assessment and stakeholder consultation. We consulted with neighbours, Singleton Council, NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, the NSW Environment Protection Authority, Roads and Maritime Services, Water NSW and neighbours. We have also led the architectural and engineering design, as well as impact assessment studies on soil, water, waste management, waste and chemicals, heritage, air, noise / vibration, transport and traffic impact assessment, fire and incident management.

The land with the benefit of the development consent is being marketed by Colliers International. The project has been developed for an experienced operator to build and operate the plant to create a substantial presence in the Hunter. Contact Mr Tim Woolf, Senior Executive Industrial, T: (02) 4915 4042, M: 0413 155 462 or email tim.woolf@colliers.com.

To see how we can help you to gain approvals and licenses to build your industrial facility, please contact us on (02) 8056 1849 or email us at admin@jacksonenvironment.com.au.