Cleanaway and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) have reiterated their partnership in targeting ‘hard-to-abate’ waste streams and working on an overall lower-emissions, more circular waste sector in Australia
The partnership, which commenced in 2017, has seen a cumulative investment commitment reaching $180 million to date.
Cleanaway says that decarbonising the sector requires a mulit-front approach including landfill gas capture, lower-emissions transport, advanced recycling systems, organics recovery, logistics infrastructure, energy recovery pathways and behaviour change programs.
Since its commencement, the Cleanaway-CEFC partnership has supported projects across several of these areas. Over that period Cleanaways says an annual emissions abatement of more than 100 ktCO2-e has been delivered .
According to the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Australia’s waste sector accounted for approximately three percent of national emissions in 2025.
Much of those emissions come from landfill methane. To address this, the CEFC committed an additional $90 million at the end of 2025 to support Cleanaway’s next stage of decarbonisation.
One of the areas the investment went towards was direct methane and landfill mitigation through designing and drilling specialised wells to expand methane collection infrastructure as well as cutting-edge methane detection technology integrated with drones.
Another area of investment was building out infrastructure, including increasing capacity at the Eastern Creek Organics facility by 35 percent to process food and garden organics – supporting the development of the Cycleback Plastics facility in partnership with Viva Energy to transform soft plastics into circular polypropylene and also progressing early-stage energy from waste (EfW) plants that recover energy from residual waste.
To ensure that the investments made deliver maximum impact, Cleanaway and the CEFC are leveraging data-driven insights to map the evolution of Australian waste habits.
By surveying the everyday waste disposal behaviour of Australians, the partnership identifies critical gaps in public recycling behaviours and infrastructure accessibility through its Recycling Behaviours Report.
“This collaboration with the CEFC shows what’s possible when finance works hand in hand with our business operations,” Cleanaway CFO Paul Binfield says.
“Together, we’re demonstrating that the waste sector can be a powerful force for decarbonisation and a cornerstone of Australia’s circular economy.”
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