Wangaratta mayor Ken Clarke said there had been interest from Albury and Wodonga councils and letters of support from Alpine, Indigo and Mansfield shires.

The construction of the plant follows a failed bid by rubbish company Cleanaway to establish an organics processing centre at Howlong in the face of community protest.

“It’s the first of its kind in Australia and we have the opportunity to be the leader in recyclable matter from not only our council,” Cr Clarke said.

“We’ve had expressions of interest from six other councils to look at their green waste going out to our organics plant.

“Before too long I think we’ll have other councils jumping at the chance to come to what will be the first recyclable plant of this nature in Australia.” 

Albury councillor Henk van de Ven said he believed interest at this stage from his city came from council staff rather than councillors.

“It does introduce a different dynamic and regionally there might be opportunities to do more things together and composting might be one of those issues,” he said. 

There has been little council discussion about organics processing since Cleanaway last December withdrew its Howlong plans for consideration by Federation Council. 

The economics of processing green waste at Albury’s waste hub would have to be weighed up against what Wangaratta might be offering, Cr van de Ven said.

At present Cleanaway takes green waste to Wagga and Gippsland from the Border for further processing.

Wangaratta council’s infrastructure services director Alan Clark said it was hoped trial production at the organics hub at Bowser would start by the end of February.

“That will be evaluated by independent auditors to make sure we’re meeting all the requirements before we get the green light to get into full scale operation,” Mr Clark said.

“We certainly expect that by the end of the financial year.”

The organics plant will process waste from green-topped bins and some mulched trees already deposited at transfer stations.

“So the worldwide recycling issues aren’t going to be assisted by the organics plant,” Mr Clark said.

“But we are...working with our contractor to develop new ways of recycling the yellow bin material.

“A lot of work is being done in the North East and southern Riverina to make that a more viable proposition and by that (I mean) better sorting of paper, glass crushing and then utilisation of the glass in gravel and bitumen products.”