At its meeting on Monday night, September 27, Lithgow Council considered a plan by the NSW Government for the concept of energy from waste. The Council resolved to oppose the plan.

A west Lithgow site has been shortlisted by the NSW Government as a potential home for the waste incinerator after two western Sydney sites were ruled out. Instead, four regional areas have been earmarked. In 2018 the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) knocked back the proposal at Eastern Creek, citing unsuitable risks to the community and environment and a failure to adequately justify the scale of the facility.

The plan involves the incineration of residue waste material, with some of the energy stored in the material being recovered for conversion to electricity. Residue waste is waste which is not able to be recycled. It is substantially paper, plastics and organic material.

The plan proposes that these activities be effectively prohibited across NSW other than within the local government areas of Lithgow, Goulburn-Mulwaree, Parkes and Northern Rivers. The plan would rule out current proposals for these activities in metropolitan Sydney following severe community backlash from residents in Western Sydney.

"We have been blindsided by this proposal. There has been no consultation with the council or our community," Mayor Councillor Ray Thompson said.

"In a briefing after announcement of this plan, we were told that before January the NSW Government intends to exhibit for just 28 days a regulation that would approve this plan."

"We also heard that Sydney requires four of these facilities by 2040. Under this plan, they will surely be placed in Lithgow and Goulburn because of proximity to Sydney" "Yet we have seen no modelling of the cumulative and long term health and environmental impacts."

"We don't understand why or accept that these activities should be concentrated in Lithgow and yet not allowed in Sydney where the bulk of the waste is created."

"Communities oppose these developments for good reason. Even the government's advice acknowledges that food production needs to be limited around these facilities and as technology improves the air emissions will need to be further restricted."

Speaking with the Lithgow Mercury last week, Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said the plan is environmentally dangerous.

"Sydney should not merely export its environmental problems to the regions," he said.

"We believe that incineration is environmentally harmful and unsustainable. But if the government is going to proceed this way, these facilities must conform to world's best practice.

"That means whatever facilities are built in the regions must operate to the highest environmental standards to ensure harmful chemicals and by-products are eliminated as much as possible during incineration."

Brad Smith from the Nature Conservation Council said the project could bring its own set of issues to the Lithgow area if it went ahead. He cited a recent air quality survey that was done in the Lithgow and Blue Mountains area showed the area had decent air quality, but warned the tests didn't look for the kinds of pollutants that an incinerator would emit.

The year-long study found the Blue Mountains and Lithgow region enjoys air quality that is generally very good, with air pollutants below health-based Australian air quality standards.

"Some of the pollutants that this project would emit, like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides haven't been monitored in the AIR. So we don't have any data on that, unfortunately," he said.

Cr Thompson continued that there would be little upside for Lithgow to host the facility. "When you look at this plan on the information that is available, we are burdened with activities that people in the cities don't want in their backyards, and there is no apparent positive upside," he said.

"I know that the Council's decision reflects the opinion of our community. This is a poor plan for Lithgow."