Waste and Circular Infrastructure Plan
The NSW Waste and Circular Infrastructure Plan will strategically guide decision-making and investment in critical waste infrastructure.
Key landfills servicing Greater Sydney are expected to close from 2030 or earlier, meaning large volumes of waste generated by households and businesses will have no safe pathway for disposal.
At the November 2024 NSW Circular Economy Summit in Sydney, the Minister for the Environment announced the NSW Government would address these waste infrastructure shortfalls facing Greater Sydney by developing the first NSW Waste and Circular Infrastructure Plan (PDF 1.7MB).
The Plan outlines whole-of-government actions to facilitate private investment in waste infrastructure and avoid the Greater Sydney waste crisis by:
- streamlining planning processes to help unlock existing landfill capacity
- finalising the review of the NSW energy from waste policy framework to enable investment in this type of infrastructure and increase the resilience of NSW’s waste management system.
- strengthening how we plan for waste infrastructure to meet the needs of Greater Sydney’s growing population.
This first chapter of the Plan acknowledges that even as we transition to a circular economy there will always remain a portion of waste we cannot recover, for a range of technical or economic reasons. This residual waste stream needs a safe, resilient disposal pathway that is sustainable over the long term.
Further chapters of the Plan are under development, with a focus on enabling higher order recovery, recycling and reuse.
Greater Sydney’s landfill space is expected to run out by 2030 unless urgent action is taken.
Information about energy from waste, the management of waste that cannot be recycled and the framework that applies to proposals for energy from waste facilities.