Lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes has renewed her attack on the NSW government for keeping most of the $30 million waste levy Newcastle council pays each year.
Cr Nelmes and deputy lord mayor Declan Clausen showed the media the council's new "Cell 9" landfill site at Summerhill Waste Management Centre on Wednesday, a $24 million hole in the ground which will take 3 million cubic metres of rubbish over the next 10 years.
The cell, which is 54 metres deep at its highest point, is among the council's most expensive infrastructure projects.
"The challenge is going to be ensuring that we don't fill up this cell as quickly as possible and that we're doing everything we can to recover and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill," Cr Clausen said.
"This is the largest council-owned and operated landfill facility in NSW."
The council opened a resource recovery centre at Summerhill in 2019 which it says has diverted more than 3100 tonnes of waste from landfill.
It is also building a $24 million organics recycling centre to divert food waste from landfill and turn it into compost.
The council also has invested in methane-capture technology which drives an on-site power plant providing electricity to about 2500 homes in Newcastle.
Cr Nelmes said the cost of these projects would be reduced if the government returned more than a tiny fraction of the waste levy.
The council, which earns money by receiving landfill waste from councils in Sydney, the Hunter and other parts of NSW, paid $32 million in waste levy money in 2018-19 and $28.9 million last financial year.
It projects this will rise to $37 million this financial year, but Cr Nelmes said the council received just $175,000 on average in return.
The government will collect about $750 million in waste levy revenue this year but returns only about 10 per cent of it to councils under its Waste Less, Recycle More program.
The levy is designed to cut the amount of waste being dumped in landfill and promote recycling and resource recovery.
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