Today 8/9/2021 Council called for tenders to provide it with “an updated long-term waste strategy that will provide the basis for a decision in respect of the future of the Jackson Street Landfill site operation”. You can read the initial tender document here.

The timing seems odd since Council decided at its March 2021 Council meeting to award the contract for design and construction of the landfill extension to the company Downer EDI. Read about it on the Jackson Street landfill website. According to the Winter edition of Our Glenorchy (page 2) work should be starting about now. (By the way, naming the editions after seasons means I don’t know when the Winter edition was actually published. In any case, what stops the Council from informing the public immediately after the decision is made?)

According to today’s tender, the project is required to “assist Council in its long-term strategic decision-making framework for the most efficient and effective waste management service for the Glenorchy community and will set down a preferred direction to manage waste after the current landfill site reaches capacity.” 

Council wants the project to deliver a strategy that addresses these questions.

1. What investment should be made in the existing site to extend its viable economic life as far as possible and enable its continued operation as a landfill?

2. Should Council invest in the existing site to redevelop it and provide a Waste Transfer Facility at the landfill site or consider the establishment of a regional Waste Transfer Station at the Lutana site in Glenorchy?

3. Should Council join or partner with an existing (or potentially future) joint local authority to satisfy the municipality’s waste disposal needs?

4. Should Council divest itself of direct service delivery and rely on the waste management and disposal facilities of other councils (e.g. kerbside collection diverted directly to another council’s or joint authority waste transfer or disposal facility)?

Council expects the project to deliver a detailed comparative cost/benefit and feasibility analysis for three solutions in addition to the no change scenario (i.e. continued operation of the Jackson Street Landfill).

The questions to be considered have major and long-term consequences. Has Council stopped or suspended work on the landfill extension?

Council expects the entire project to take up to six months. Tenders close in four weeks i.e. Wednesday October 6.

It was reported at the February 2022 Open Council meeting that “Construction has commenced on the $2.9m Jackson Street Landfill extension project, to construct a new landfill cell which will extend the life of the facility by over a decade.