Cleanaway

Cleanaway Operations Pty Ltd is Australia’s leading total waste management, industrial and environmental services company.

By 2053 Victoria is forecast to send an estimated 8.9 million tonnes of waste to landfill each year*.​ Victoria needs a number of facilities across the State to support waste disposal each and every day. The total amount of waste for disposal (after resource recovery and recycling) is currently 5.7 million tonnes per year, which is projected to increase to around 8.9 million tonnes per year by 2053.

That’s enough to fill almost 5,000 Olympic size swimming pools or 9.5 MCGs, every year.

We now face a critical choice: keep sending most residual waste to landfill, or reserve valuable landfill space for materials with no other treatment options.

The challenge

Residual waste is the general waste we put in the bin after we have reduced, reused and recycled. It also includes residual commercial waste from industrial and demolition sources. Currently, all of Victoria’s residual waste is being sent to landfill.

The Victorian government is taking steps to decrease the materials currently being sent to landfill such as Food Organics and Garden Organics, as part of the Victorian Government’s Circular Economy Policy and Plan. However, there will always be waste that cannot be avoided, reused or recycled.

For that reason, the Victorian Circular Economy Policy and Plan and Victorian Waste-to-energy Framework acknowledges the role of waste-to-energy, for the recovery of energy and other resources from residual waste, through the Victorian Waste-to-energy Framework.

About the Melbourne Energy & Resource Centre

The Melbourne Energy & Resource Centre (MERC) is designed to take residual waste that would otherwise go to landfill. It will create energy to power local homes and create valuable materials such as ash and metals.

In August 2025, Cleanaway received a cap licence from Recycling Victoria allowing the Melbourne Energy & Resource Centre (MERC) to process up to 760,000 tonnes of residual waste each year. In 2023 when the project was first proposed, Cleanaway considered a 380,000 tonnes per year capacity. This new increase makes the project more economically and operationally viable, allowing MERC to deliver greater environmental benefits, lower waste management costs, and improved energy recovery at scale.

Watch the video to see how the MERC will operate.

For more information visit: https://www.cleanaway.com.au/location/melbourne-energy-and-resource-centre/