During a confidential session during last week's Lismore City Council May meeting, councillors voted to explore lease options of a parcel of land at 97 Caniaba Street, South Lismore.

Later, Mayor Steve Krieg, in his video summary of the council meeting, said this was "potentially a really exciting business opportunity, which is a company that wants to come to Lismore, who recycle not only construction waste but demolition waste from houses. They're an established company on the mid-north coast already.

"It is actually above the one in 100 flood height, so it is a suitable commercial and industrial zone piece of land, but this business wants to come to Lismore. They want to set up a really great pathway for employment and opportunity for our people here. But not only that, they're a really great partner to work with houses that sadly have been bought back by the Reconstruction Authority, and rather than getting demolished and shipped off to a waste facility either on the far north coast or possibly into Queensland, we can process those homes right here in our own backyard and recover the materials that are able to be recovered and repurpose those other materials into, saleable assets."

A quick bit of research led the Lismore App to the only company that appears capable of achieving the above outcomes at scale, the Legacy Solutions Group.

The Legacy Solutions Group (LSG) is a family-owned and operated business based in Kempsey, three and a half hours south of Lismore. They say they are committed to 'Environmental Sustainability' and are Resource Recovery and Waste management specialists.

LSG's Vision is to reduce the amount of waste by promoting individual and corporate responsibility. To recover waste for its highest and best use while balancing rates and services. To transform our country from burying waste to utilising waste as a resource.

With Lismore's landfill site, Cell 2B, severely damaged in the 2022 big flood, our waste has been shipped to Queensland for the last three years. Council was exploring other landfill options when it was discovered that Cell 2B had a lower lifespan than expected. If LSG can recycle over 90% of Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste, as it claims, this may extend Cell 2B's life while longer-term solutions are found, like Blakebrook Quarry.

In a video, LSG states that the mid-north coast produces about 250,000 tonnes of C&D waste every year.

Due to those volumes, LSG has created Legacy Park in Kempsey with the intention of reducing the landfill footprint. There is a Resource Recovery Centre in place, and LSG is expanding its Park to 'create a better future for our environment and our generations to come by processing as much reusable product as possible to avoid landfill'.

Lismore City Council has often spoken about creating a circular economy through waste, but has failed to deliver it in a financially sustainable way. Maybe a private company can succeed where council has failed. It certainly costs them nothing to try, apart from leasing the land and believing in the concept.

Legacy Park works with six councils on the Mid-North Coast in the Construction and Demolition (C&D) Recovery space. Their goal is to reduce the amount of landfill by as much as 90%. So, there is the possibility of Legacy creating a regional C&D solution, for not only Lismore, but the other seven council's Northern Rivers. With the amount of demolition and construction that is going to occur, especially in Lismore, over the next five years, you can understand council's interest in bringing Legacy to South Lismore.

Legacy Park is 60 acres, which is enough room to build individual product lines, which are then turned into new products for use in the region, creating jobs.

Materials that are recycled include treated timber, natural timber, gyprock, steel, bricks, hardware, various types of plastic (buckets), minus 10 bedding, sand and minus 40 aggregate or road base.

The recycled material then goes on sale to the public, building companies and council's as gypsum (construction and agriculture), road base material, drainage rock, site fill and reclaimed bricks.

While nothing is confirmed at this point in time, it is easy to see council's excitement for Legacy to come to Lismore.