Invest in waste to energy

Waste to energy is a technology process that turns waste materials into different types of energy forms including heat, electricity, gas, and fuel.

Waste to energy technologies and supply chains are playing a vital role in the transition to a circular economy in Victoria. Waste to energy provides strong opportunities for businesses to transition their energy away from direct fossil fuel use. Waste to energy technologies and systems can reduce material going to landfill, save costs, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

The recovery of energy from waste fits in line with the waste hierarchy as a final opportunity to recover materials option after avoidance, reuse, and recycling. This ensures we achieve the best possible economic and environmental outcomes for waste that would otherwise go to landfill.

Waste to energy technologies

Waste to energy technologies fall into 2 broad categories:

1. thermal waste to energy – processes like combustion, gasification and pyrolysis which use heat to turn waste into useful energy resources.
2. biological processing of organic waste (bioenergy) – processes like anaerobic digestion and fermentation which use biological processes to convert organic waste into useful energy resources.

Victorian waste to energy policy

The way waste to energy is managed in Victoria is changing.

The Victorian Government’s waste to energy policy was published in February 2020 as part of Recycling Victoria: A New Economy policy.

The Recycling Victoria policy is a 10-year plan that steps out the systemic change that’s needed to cut waste and boost recycling and reuse of our precious resources.

Read more about Victoria’s plan for a circular economy.

Victorian waste to energy framework

In November 2021, the Victorian waste to energy framework was released as part of the Recycling Victoria policy.

The Victorian waste to energy framework recognises the role of waste to energy to divert waste from landfills. It strikes the right balance to focus on waste avoidance and recycling in Victoria's transition to a circular economy.

To manage any risks of over-reliance on waste to energy, the framework places a one million tonne per year cap on the amount of waste that can be heat treated to make energy and outlines how the cap will work.

Read more about the Victorian Waste to Energy framework.

Processes the cap applies to

For the purposes of the cap, ‘thermal waste to energy’ refers to any thermal process used to:

• recover energy from waste in the form of heat, which may be converted into steam or electricity
• produce fuel from waste.

Thermal waste to energy includes, but is not limited to, combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis technologies (or any hybrid variant).

The following processes are not considered to be ‘thermal waste to energy’ for the purposes of the cap:

• Advanced recycling: the conversion to monomer or production of new raw materials (other than fuels) by changing the chemical structure of a material or substance through cracking, gasification or depolymerisation.
• Biological waste to energy technologies, which use microbial action to recover energy from waste. This includes, but is not limited to, anaerobic digestion and fermentation.
• Landfill gas collection and combustion.
• Incineration of waste with no energy recovery.
• Thermal processes that recovery energy from materials that are not waste.

Wastes that can be used for thermal waste to energy

Under the proposed waste to energy framework, waste is divided into 3 categories based on its suitability for use as a thermal waste to energy feedstock:

• Permitted waste: waste that can be used for thermal waste to energy under a cap licence.
• Banned waste: waste that cannot be used in any thermal waste to energy process.
• Exempt waste: waste that can be used for thermal waste to energy outside of a cap licence.

For more information about how the cap will operate, refer to the Victorian waste to energy framework which details how permitted, banned and exempt wastes are defined under the framework.

Opportunities

• Processing incinerator bottom ash from thermal waste to energy facilities into aggregate for road infrastructure and civil development projects.
• Victoria’s Gas Substitution Roadmap highlights alternative gases, such as hydrogen and biomethane, are likely to play a significant and growing role in Victoria’s energy future.
• The Australia Renewable Energy Agency Bioenergy Roadmap reveals that by the start of the next decade, Australia’s bioenergy sector could contribute to around $10 billion in extra GDP per annum, create 26,200 new jobs, reduce emissions by about 9 per cent, divert an extra 6 per cent of waste from landfill, and enhance fuel security.
• Renewable fuel production including biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel.

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For more information on waste data visit Recycling Victoria’s Data Hub.