The environment and the City of Launceston’s financial bottom line will be the big winners following the announcement of Veolia’s new $24 million materials recovery facility.
The announcement follows a decision by Veolia to move away from building its proposed recovery facility in Churchill Park Drive in Invermay, which drew considerable opposition from nearby residents.
Launceston Mayor Danny Gibson commended City of Launceston employees who worked with Veolia to find a suitable alternate location at Spreyton that was both cost effective for the company as well as Launceston ratepayers, while also addressing the concerns of those affected Invermay residents.
“While recognising that this facility will no longer be built in our municipality, the Spreyton proposal will deliver a number of significant positive outcomes for Launceston ratepayers across the board,” Mayor Gibson said.
“Having a facility that is able to process half of Tasmania’s recyclable material is a huge positive in terms of environmental outcomes due to sheer volume of material the new plant will be able to handle on a daily basis,” Mayor Gibson said.
“It will also result in significant savings to the City of Launceston – somewhere in the vicinity of $1 million a year – which is certainly welcome news at a time when waste recovery costs for councils all over Australia have increased significantly.”
Mayor Gibson said Council will hold discussions with the Churchill Park landowner in due course around the future use of the site.
“I have no doubt that Veolia will maintain a strong presence in Northern Tasmania and I look forward to ongoing job opportunities that will flow across the entire region from the construction of this multi-million-dollar facility.”
Mayor Gibson said he was confident the Spreyton plant decision would have other positive flow-on effects for Northern Tasmanians, with the company indicating that there was likely to be future jobs growth directly into the Launceston market.
“We know that given this business model that transport jobs, for example, are likely to be on the increase with up to four jobs created in the region,” Mayor Gibson said.
“Other significant opportunities could come in the form of the circular economy as the company aggregates more product and improves its processing and sorting – and these are all good outcomes for our region.”
