Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has journalists in every state and territory. Sign up here to get it by email, or here to forward it to a friend. Today's is written by podcast host, Tom Melville.
Out Tarago way, on the NSW Southern Tablelands between Goulburn and Braidwood they're complaining like the rest of us about the rain. It's cut roads, flooded paddocks, delayed harvests and generally made life miserable.
But it's not the only stuff falling from the sky - and this is big sky country - that has them worried.
Last year, they got wind of plans by French multinational Veolia to build a waste-to-energy incinerator at Woodlawn, the old copper, lead and zinc mine repurposed as a giant landfill and bioreactor for a large chunk of Sydney's rubbish.
It's new technology designed to burn the rubbish that can't be recycled or composted and use the heat to generate electricity.
But locals are wary.
They've had issues with their corporate neighbour over the years - the smell from the bioreactor and leaks from the train carriages carting the rubbish - and they're far from convinced this new facility will be safe.
It's not just another "NIMBY" story. It goes to the heart of how much rubbish we generate, why we only recycle a fraction of it, and how we can best deal with it.
There are 20 similar facilities under consideration across the country at a time when incinerators are being phased out in Europe.
So for this week's episode of Voice of Real Australia, Laura Corrigan, John Hanscombe and I jumped into the car to investigate.
In the supermarket aisles with Clean Up Australia chief Pip Kiernan, we took a look at the bewildering array of plastic packaging - some good, some bad, most utterly confusing when it comes to recycling.
From Goulburn to Tarago, we found a community united in its opposition to any kind of incinerator.
At Woodlawn itself we explored an impressive facility which not only deals with rubbish but through that process generates enough power to run a fish farm. Ever wonder where Canberra's barramundi comes from? Yep, a lot of it from the biggest rubbish dump in NSW.
I hope you can come along for the ride.
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Tom Melville
Originally from Canberra, Tom Melville worked for the BBC in the UK and as a freelancer in Tunisia before coming to ACM. He is the host of ACM's national podcast Voice of Real Australia. urlgeni.us/VORAPod
Originally from Canberra, Tom Melville worked for the BBC in the UK and as a freelancer in Tunisia before coming to ACM. He is the host of ACM's national podcast Voice of Real Australia. urlgeni.us/VORAPod
