On 11 June 2012, the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the French company Veolia has been approved to increase the maximum amount of rubbish dumped in the disused Woodlawn mine at Tarago, near Goulburn, (originally 360,000 million tonnes then increased to 500,000) to 1.13 million tonnes a year.

The issue is new transfer facilities are required, and no evidence is obvious that the Sydney end or the Tarago end is able to handle the increased waste transfer rates.

For example the current Sydney facility can handle 500,000 tonnes per year. Tarago has a rail siding capable of transhipping from rail to road for the remainder of the journey at the rate of the Sydney transfer capability.

Veolia is quoted as saying: “new transfer infrastructure would be needed to handle increased waste from Sydney”.

In March 2012, when approving the Woodlawn expansion the (NSW) Planning Assessment Commission did conclude waste levies, not caps, would reduce garbage flowing to landfills. But they failed to disclose that the approved waste sorting facility(s) was not coping or missing from the equation.

What is even more compelling is the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water thought the Woodlawn expansion plan failed to address planning regulations that require landfill proposals to demonstrate “a suitable level of recovery of waste”. Co2Land believes fiqures of recovery are significantly lower than predicted. Co2land also notes the methane-capture facility at the site converts greenhouse gas emissions into renewable energy, but is underperforming. The new windfarm at Woodlawn helps offset the losses by this underperformance.

With all this good example potential.  Why don’t they rail direct to the Woodlawn site? It might make all the planets align!