Remondis withdrew its $400 million waste to energy proposal at Swanbank in 2022.

“Now whether that new facility will be in Brisbane, or somewhere else in the region is still being explored,” Schrinner said.

He said when south-east Queensland mayors travelled to Vancouver and Los Angeles in February they were warned an electrified public transport network needed more power in peak hours.

He said on that trip mayors also visited a waste-to-energy facility.

“We now have a joint project office with the state government as part of the City Deal and as part of our waste strategy, this is something we are very much looking at,” Schrinner said.

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In August 2023, State Development Minister and Deputy Premier Steven Miles announced a $151 million project to build 1 million new wheelie bins for food scraps and organic waste by 2030.

On Thursday, mayors and chief ministers from Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Melbourne and Hobart passed on tips to become more resilient and liveable cities.

Interstate tips for more liveable cities:

Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis:

“We discovered the best, easiest and cheapest way was to plant more trees. Every three months we give 3000 trees to our neighbours to plant up their yard and their verges.

“The best solution is trees, trees, trees.”

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp:

Melbourne has recently appointed two “chief heat officers”.

Capp highlighted a “Cool Routes” initiative with Google Maps which identifies the route between two locations with the coolest temperature.

“With Google Maps it identifies the coolest way to get there walking under cover, under shade and whether that is trees and places to get water and shelter.”

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds:

Pioneered the use of single use plastics introducing the idea in 2019, but it was not adopted by the Tasmanian state government.

“Unfortunately, our state government has not followed our lead, but every other state in the country has.”

“We are now focussing on reducing food and organic waste scraps going to landfill.”

Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas:

He said the mayors of Australia’s capital cities were a very valuable knowledge resource that can be tapped by other mayors.

“We’re looking at Melbourne’s plans to use C-Grade building stock where they house a significant slice of their population.”

Adelaide Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith:

“I want people to start thinking about why ‘fast furniture’ is a problem,” she said.

“If you live in unstable accommodation, and you are relatively poor, and you move from place to place every year, you throw your furniture out, and you buy more cheap furniture.

“We have to find ways of recycling furniture.”

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr:

The ACT is concentrating on developing a renewable energy battery storage facility over the next decade, Barr said.

“We have wind farms in Victoria and in South Australia and we have solar in the ACT and in New South Wales, all of which feeds in to Canberra to power us with 100 per cent renewable electricity.”