The Tasmanian Liberal Government is delivering on its commitment to reduce waste and build Tasmania’s circular economy, including significant investment to improve organic waste collection and reprocessing infrastructure right across the State.
That is why I am pleased to announce B G & J M Barwick Pty Ltd has been chosen as the successful applicant for $3 million of seed funding to establish a regional organic waste processing facility in southern Tasmania after an extensive Expressions of Interest process.
Investments such are these are key to our Government’s plan to reduce the volume of organic waste sent to landfill by 50 per cent by 2030, consistent with the national target in the National Waste Policy Action Plan 2019.
This facility, once operational, will play an important role in the southern organic waste management system and will complement other projects under development to grow our circular economy.
The new facility at Boyer will process up to 24,000 tonnes of organic waste per annum and will complement Barwick’s existing facilities at Oatlands and Bridgewater to allow them to expand their total processing capacity of 113,000 tonne per annum to 165,000 tonne per annum.
This has the potential to save up to 80,000 tonnes of CO2-e emissions per year across Barwick's facilities, and is part of our Government’s plan to reduce emissions by working with all sectors of the economy and contribute to our nation-leading target of net zero emissions, or lower, from 2030.
Barwick’s proposed project is for a industrial scale in-vessel composting facility at Boyer, adjacent to the Norske Skog Boyer mill, and is expected to create up to 30 full-time equivalent jobs during the construction phase and 15 ongoing jobs.
Barwick manager Tyronn Barwick said the funding from the Tasmanian Liberal Government would enable family-owned Tasmanian company Barwick to construct a state of the art, $14 million in-vessel composting facility at Boyer to process a significant volume of Southern Tasmania’s organic materials in an environmentally sustainable manner.
“The facility’s strategic placement at Boyer will play a role in processing commercial organic materials in conjunction with local councils food organics and garden organics (FOGO),” Mr Barwick said.
Growing our circular economy is a priority for our Government and this initiative will play a significant role in reducing our waste and emissions, improving our environment, and creating jobs for Tasmanians.