Resource Recovery Facility

The Mindarie Regional Council (MRC) is a regional local government which undertakes waste processing activities on behalf of its constituent member councils, the Cities of Joondalup, Perth, Stirling, Vincent and Wanneroo, and the Towns of Cambridge and Victoria Park.

This encompasses roughly one third of Perth’s population, approximately three quarters of a million people, and the MRC handles around 180,000 tonnes of residual waste per year on behalf of these residents.

Until August 2021, the MRC’s Resource Recovery Facility (RRF) in Neerabup processed 100,000 tonnes of residual waste per year, extracting and composting the organic material from the largely unsorted waste stream for beneficial use. To date, the processing facility has diverted over 600,000 tonnes of waste from landfill.

With the introduction of the State’s Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030 (WARR Strategy), there is a clear change to the way in which organics must be separated and sorted at the household level, through the use of a third bin for Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO).

A number of the MRC’s member councils have moved to provide Garden Organics (GO) bins to their residents as a transition step. The organics collected in these bins is currently being processed by external recyclers.

However, the MRC is currently working with its member councils to publish a tender to recycle their potential FOGO materials in alignment with the WARR Strategy. The Neerabup facility has been maintained since its closure and has the potential to manufacture an Australian Standards compliant compost, and a suitable partner is sought through this tender exercise to treat these materials.

The MRC is committed to processing waste as high up the waste hierarchy as possible and is constantly evaluating better ways in which to do this. By greater collaboration with industry and state government, the MRC seeks to do its part to help develop a regional circular economy for the northern metropolitan area of Perth.