Moss Vale Plastics Recycling Facility

I work at the preschool at 50 Beaconsfield Road Moss Vale. A quiet country road that the preschool playground fronts. We have 46 children per day so that equates to 102 cars per day moving in and out driveway and parking on the street daily in a 50 metre long space PLUS we have a 20 lot subdivision directly opposite us that has not taken into account the preschool it’s like no one knows we exist. A 20 lot subdivision has the very real potential of adding another 40 cars entering and exiting Beaconsfield Road within the 50 metre strip of road outside of preschool the road is not wide enough for passing traffic as it is cars need to slow down. That’s over a 1000 cars per week negotiating a 50 metre stretch of Beaconsfield Road. The potential of traffic accidents occurring with increase use of road is high PLUS the risk of poorer air and noise quality for children playing in the playground next to Beaconsfield Road is extreme. Children with asthma will be significantly impacted as will very young babies. But even children without asthma could develop environmental asthma because of the pollutes in the air. Also educators working in the preschool will be impacted by the air quality and noise of the trucks and from the plant when the wind blows from the north which is usually during summer.
While I support recycling having this facility next to a preschool is just badly planned and our children have not even been considered. Over a week 46 children per day equals 230 children per week being impacted by poor air quality and excess noise on Beaconsfield Road that equals over a 1000 children over a 5 yr period….
I find that in 2022 that our children are still not being considered and their health is being jeopardised quite disturbing. Also I find it ridiculous that a person has to jump through hoops and it can take 8 months to be approved for a carport but yet a huge scale development can put forward desktop assessments on significant impact on flora and fauna and the environment.
Please reconsider the site it really needs to be a greater distance away from towns and preschools and children.

Thank you for your time,
Peta

NOT THE RIGHT SITE. A number of major concerns covering environment, water & air quality, social & economic and traffic disturbances have been identified in resarching this EIS. Attched is detailed information on each of these issues.

The residential roads around the vicinity of the proposed site cannot cope with that many heavy vehicles. They are also not wide enough.
We fear for our health from the toxic fumes that will come from the facility.
It’s a great thing to be doing the recycling but the position of the site is just not practical on so many levels.

I object to the proposed location of the plasrefine project. This location has rural/ residential homes right next door to the location. There are 3 schools within 2km of the project and an early daycare centre on the very rural road that will be being used to transport the many truck passes this project will bring.

I am concerned about access to the site when the proposal is suggesting 100 to 200 heavy vehicle trucks going through residential areas. This is unacceptable with the many schools within the proposed area, narrow country roads and children walking to school this is a dangerous issue.

There is nothing of this scale of building with the Southern Highlands and having a building that is going to cover acres of land right next to homes (within 200m of homes) is just not the right site. It may be zoned industrial however the scope of this project does not suit the area it is being proposed to be built.

I am a nearby resident and was born in, educated and lived and worked in the Southern Highlands for 38 years.

To consider this application has any potential is disgusting, and it would seem a sequence of poor judgements have seen it make it this far!

The haphazard EIS from GHD / Plasrefine is appalling for such a supposedly significant project, and I am confident relevant decision makers will see the gaping logistical shortcomings within the document! GHD / Plasrefine in their 'community engagements' have few answers for any questions of any cognitive depth relating to access, physical suitability, community safety, Noise and light pollution, water and air quality protection for the immediate and broader community. The proposal is insensitive to the catastrophic damages it WILL cause to the socioecological nature of this part of the Southern Highlands!

The site Plasrefine is currently land locked with no approved access! GHD suggest that Beaconsfield Rd. will be used for construction and the proposed Braddon Rd. will be established for operational access. Unless they can not acquire the land, in which case they will continue to use Beaconsfield Rd (a cul-de-sac) to access as it is their 'legal allowance'. The portion of land they intend to acquire for access is currently privately held and surely should have been acquired before their application was even considered?! Beaconsfield Rd. at the Northern end at the topographical knoll has approximately 10 residential dwellings from the knoll to the northern end cul-de-sac. The road hardly holds up under light passenger vehicles and they propose to send volumes of heavy articulated trucks up this road. The Northern end of the rd, at the end of the cul-de-sac has a significant topographic decline which drops into the Australian BioResources (Garvan institute) site. There are no specifics as to the engineering to reinforce or 'cut and fill' their proposed access road. It is a considerable section of land to be engineered here! Again, a section which Plasrefine still do not currently hold! Beaconsfield Rd at the Northern end has a blind crest with residents on both sides and the safety for those residents would be jeopardised if construction or ANY heavy vehicles were to frequent what is otherwise a nearly dormant road! It would be negligent to permit such access via Beaconsfield Rd., even for construction purposes, if this debacle were approved. There is a day care facility only hundreds of metres from the Northern end of Beaconsfield Rd. and 2 other schools within close vicinity to the site where heavy, articulated vehicles should not frequent!

The site itself is within 150 metres of long term residents and operating noise, light and toxic air and water pollutants would destroy the rural / residential and ecological nature of this area! GHD lean on the language that 'the area is zoned for this', which demonstrated huge negligence and oversight when zoned by authority, and little concern for the fragile socioecological nature of this incredible part of our State! The area to the South of Douglas road should never have been considered for such development and the zoning should be reviewed to protect the communities health and safety, immediately and the broader population of our State.

The site sits atop category 2 riparian waterway and is prone to flooding. This flows directly in to the Wingecarribee River, which is a fragile and endemic ecosystem which has resident Platypus' and volumes of other natives within and around. This also flows in to and is within the SYDNEY drinking and water catchment!

The visual impact of this proposal will destroy this beautiful green edge of the Moss Vale community, both day and night with such large buildings and associated lighting, which again has no definitives proposed by GHD. This proposal will have significant adverse impact on the socioecological, community, 'way of life', tourism, health and well being of residents and threatens the nature of the Southern Highlands in general.

This proposal is ill-conceived and can not go ahead! I trust the State Planning department/s will quickly identify that these points raised, as well as countless other short comings in the EIS will deem this application and any similar to it for this area not acceptable or in line with what acceptable land usages within this area.

Regards.

Not the right site

I strongly object to this proposal. Whilst I do not oppose plastic recycling I do not accept that this is a suitable site for this proposal. It is the wrong site due to the associated, unacceptable environmental impacts.

I believe that Beaconsfield Road is not suitable for heavy vehicles, particularly due to it being a residential road used by families on a daily basis. I am concerned about the conflict of use due to the various users of this road. There are also safety implications associated with this. Children regular ride their bikes on a regular basis on this road and families go for walks along here too. They will no longer be able to do this safely if the proposal is approved.

I also hold grave concerns in relation to the environmental impacts this proposal presents, particularly in respect of the potential/likely water and air pollution that will undoubtedly result.

The visual impacts are also unacceptable. This will ruin the scenic qualities of the landscape for good and the mitigation measures proposed in the EIS are unreliable and uncertain and therefore unsuitable to reduce the huge impacts.

I have been a resident of Moss Vale since 1956 and this proposal will totally impact on my sense of place. I have chosen to live in Moss Vale because I have always felt that it is a lovely, safe and scenic place to live. This proposal will completely change the way I feel and will have adverse impacts not only on Moss Vale but also the Southern Highlands generally.

Site totally inappropriate.
Too close to residential areas.
Unsightly very large building.
Large volume of trucks 24/7 in residential area on totally inadequate road access for both construction and operation of site.
Fumes from site in residential areas and water pollution from site.

The proposed site is entirely inappropriate.
Access is terrible.
In a residential area, A town centre and schools and childcare facilities.
The scale of the proposed factory is enormous, the building alone takes up 5 acres of land and is several stories high.
The use of water is unsustainable.
The air pollution created is entirely inappropriate for a town with a growing population of young families.
This factory should be somewhere far away from residential properties, with direct access to freeway and train line and nearer Sydney. There’s plenty of open space in that region that could be used.

Please see attachment below.

I am very concerned about the safety issues that will result from the heavy haulage movements required to service the facility. We live along the route proposed in Moss Vale and have 2 primary school aged children, currently at Moss Vale PS.
Their safety and that of their peers will be hugely compromised as they walk to school and around the neighbourhood.
I’m also concerned about the high levels of noise pollution, air pollution, water pollution and visual pollution that will result from this facility in this location. This is not the right site for a facility of this nature.
There has been no Social Impact Assessment done, likely because there would be extremely adverse findings to the community, specifically around the: safety of children, pedestrians and light vehicles on the roads nearby; community infrastructure; services and facilities; culture; health and well-being and the rural surroundings of Moss Vale.
Please reconsider the building of this facility on this site, it needs to be moved much further away from neighbourhoods and surrounding towns.

Moss Vale is one of the oldest towns in NSW with a rich heritage. It is not the dumping ground of NSW or in fact Australia. It has a high school, primary and infant schools, TAFE, police HQ and is a vibrant country town. It already has major issues with traffic and no by-pass is in sight. For at least two + hours each weekday and often on Saturday mornings, it is a 'parking lot' as people try to get to work or school and all day most days Moss Vale experiences very heavy traffic. This traffic at certain times is already prohibiting the movement of essential services such as ambulance, police, fire appliances and the SES, which is totally unacceptable. To build a plastic refinery anywhere close to Moss Vale is extraordinary in the extreme and totally unacceptable. Traffic management would be a nightmare bordering impossible, the smell unacceptable (and don't say there won't be any!) and no doubt more low cost housing built for workers. There is already huge underemployment in Moss Vale with most businesses advertising for staff. Don't make this worse.
Australia is a large mainly uninhabited country so why in the world would any government even consider putting this disgusting factory with hundreds or trucks etc. near any town, and specifically Moss Vale. Politics gone mad!

Move it and move it now. This community has been fighting this outrageous proposal for ages and it should just be moved to an uninhabited area now!

Absolute outrage to allow this so close to home owners and a day care, this was a nice country town and with all the developments it's becoming another suburb. We've lost wat we were and it needs to stop. Consider a different more industrial location.

I strongly object to this project. It’s not the right sight for this type of project. Also roads will be a major problem with access to heavy vehicles using them. I am also really really concerned about pollutions coming from this site

I live in Moss Vale and very concerned of the risk of a company Plasrefine building and operating a toxic plastic waste processing plant in the highlands. The pollution that these facilities produce including carcinogenic waste would be detrimental to people of the Southern Highlands. These are people’s livelihood including many young families moving to the area. consider people please instead of the hip pocket.

I’m very concerned the impact that this plant will have on the environment and surrounding properties.The problem is waiting for an entrance rd to this facility to be built.There is no curb or guttering and the streets are not that wide to allow heavy trucks and extra vehicles for most of the day.It will be very dangerous for the kids going to from school as they ride there bikes and walk along the roads as there is no path to walk on until you get closer to the school also people walk there dogs and push prams along those roads which are in question.It shouldn’t go ahead as it’s just not a suitable location .

While I applaud the concept of more plastic recycling, the planned location in Moss Vale is absurd for many reasons but in particular a) the traffic congestion in and around Moss Vale has become progressively worse by the day. Argyle St carries an extraordinary number of heavy vehicles at the moment and this project will make travel in the area frustratingly worse. It seems obvious that Argyle St will in fact be used by the heavy vehicles indicated. The roads , including the ones indicated to be used for this project, have deteriorated to such an extent that Council maintenance crews cannot keep pace. The roads cannot cope with current normal heavy vehicles and ruined roads will result from more B-Doubles and A- Doubles as planned . It is logical to think that road trains will follow . b) In order to process plastic, heat has to be applied . Heated plastic produces toxic, stinking gas ( developers call it odour) , no matter how hard an organisation tries to prevent it . This will blow across thousands of residents and is unacceptable. c) The usual concerns over such a project have not been addressed including safety of people, noise, quality of water and air, oversized development of buildings proposed, no Social Impact Assessment , to which country profits will be directed.

I would really like the planners give serious consideration to the future and not make short sighted decisions. Yes we need to address recycling but any business that is going to affect the environment, the community and our children should be investigated thoroughly. Please think long term, is this the best location, will it be regretted down the line. Its time to put our grown up pants on and really make good plans that our grandchildren and their grandchildren will be proud of. Let’s leave a meaningful legacy.
Please.
You hold the power to make the world a better place.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sandra

Placing a Plastic waste facility in Moss Vale is the worst decision anyone could make. Firstly, Moss Vale and the Southern Highlands are made up of a majority of elderly population for 1 and if a fire was to break out in this facility, evacuation would be an utter nightmare plus hardardous to the health everyone near by. Secondly, traffic is already a nightmare and you want to bring more trucks in what a joke. There is also schools around this site especially little kids and having more traffic will put pressure on our roads and accidents will double. Not to mention the noise that will come out of the facility if it runs 24/7. There is so many reasons as to why Moss Vale is the wrong place to put this facility. Get with it the government you can find another vacant plot somewhere else that's not in the vicinity of a town.

The project is to big for the Moss Vale area and the traffic would be to much for the local roads to handle