1. The Coordinator-General must decide whether public consultation policy is required for applications in State Development Areas.
2. There has not been open public consultation. Cleanaway have conducted targeted meetings and have selectively accepted requests to participate in their in-person and online reference group meetings.
3. Cleanaway cannot demonstrate that they have community acceptance to operate the proposed incinerator.
4. Social License is the acceptance granted to a company by the community. It’s made up of three components:
- Legitimacy - do they play by the rules?
- Credibility - do they provide honest information?
- Trust - can the community be confident they will do what they say?
5. Cleanaway does not play by the rules. It has a long record of breaching license conditions at their facilities and received a precedent-setting fine of >$600K by the QLD EPA for offences at their Ipswich landfill facility, being environmental odour nuisance offences, including unlawfully pumping contaminated water around its site and unlawfully using that water for dust suppression
The VIC Supreme Court has recently ruled in favour of the VIC EPA declaring an underpaid landfill levy for FY18 of $6.9M. Additional EPA audits have highlighted further alleged underpayments of $4.7M for FY19 and $7.2M for FY22. These additional years are not yet subject to court proceedings and figures exclude costs and interest.
Cleanaway in May 2026 has been ordered to pay a $1.1M fine for workplace failures, the largest ever imposed under federal work health and safety laws
6. Cleanaway does not provide honest information. They label their proposal as energy and resource recovery when it is overwhelmingly plastic incineration.
7. Cleanaway cannot be trusted to do what they say. They say the waste to be burnt is not recyclable, yet there are no sorting processes involved to extract recyclables, and the most desirable calorific materials are plastic and textiles.
8. Cleanaway has not disclosed information on the many toxic releases occurring overseas at modern waste incinerators, yet claims they are safe.
1. Ethics Explainer: social license to operate, The Ethics Centre, 2022
6. Cleanaway does not provide honest information. They label their proposal as energy and resource recovery when it is overwhelmingly plastic incineration.
7. Cleanaway cannot be trusted to do what they say. They say the waste to be burnt is not recyclable, yet there are no sorting processes involved to extract recyclables, and the most desirable calorific materials are plastic and textiles.
8. Cleanaway has not disclosed information on the many toxic releases occurring overseas at modern waste incinerators, yet claims they are safe.
CLEANAWAY HAS RECEIVED
NUMEROUS FINES,
WARNINGS & CAUTIONS
FOR LICENCE INFRINGEMENTS
Key References:
1. Ethics Explainer: social license to operate, The Ethics Centre, 2022
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