Australian Paper has invited the community to a series of consultation sessions about a proposed $600 million energy-to-waste plant at the Maryvale paper mill.
AP corporate development general manager David Jettner said the Environment Protection Agency was evaluating a works application that could be approved in September.
Mr Jettner said the EPA would consider community feedback from consultation sessions before it makes its decision.
The 225-megawatt combustion plant would divert 650,000 tonnes of non-hazardous municipal waste that would ordinarily go into landfill to generate electricity to power the paper mill.
Mr Jettner said they would source household red bin waste from Gippsland and south eastern Melbourne municipalities.
He said it would save 550,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per annum from methane that is mainly generated from waste sitting in landfill.
Mr Jettner said AP had modelled and analysed potential noise, air quality or odour impacts on the community, as well as completed engineering details about the plant specifications.
“We’ve done research overseas to fully understand how this technology works and how they operate around communities,” Mr Jettner said.
He said there were 500 such plants operating in Europe with stringent emissions controls.
“People are concerned about emissions and we’ve done our due diligence. Half of our capital investment would go into filtering and scrubbing our emissions,” Mr Jettner said.
“This process is sophisticated and proven, and this is why we went overseas to see it working.”
Mr Jettner said the aim of the project was to create energy security for the mill at a cheaper rate.
“This would create the most amount of energy for the plant but not all of it. We would still need a small amount of gas and coal-fired electricity,” he said.
“We would export energy into the grid during our planned maintenance outages.”
Mr Jettner said the plant would take three years to build and create 1600 jobs during its construction phase, and 440 on-going jobs. He hoped construction would start in early 2020.
He said the plant would look similar to existing buildings at Maryvale and consist of a stack and a boiler. It would have the capacity to store five days’ worth of waste inside a storage bunker.
Mr Jettner said if all goes to plan, AP would begin engaging in council tender processes to secure waste and secure finance for the capital investment.
The Australian Paper open house sessions will be at the Premier Function Centre in Traralgon on Tuesday, June 5 and Wednesday, June 6 from 2-7pm.
Another session will be held in Morwell at 126 George Street on Tuesday, June 19 from 2pm-7pm.
