The Gold Coast’s biggest resource recovery project has taken questions from people who can’t yet vote.

About 140 of them, in fact – high school students from 40 schools stretching from Rivermount College at Yatala to Palm Beach Currumbin State High, gathered at the Broadbeach Cultural Centre for the City of Gold Coast Junior Council.

The City of Gold Coast Junior Council Program is a two-year civic leadership initiative designed for high school students in Years 10 and 11.

Head of Community and Reputation Greer Quinn said ARRC’s engagement team came with two questions: what do you want to know about waste and resource recovery, and how do you want to learn it?

“During the 45-minute session, students returned more than 210 feedback contributions through survey responses and ideas board comments – a testament to their enthusiasm but also the need for this type of engagement,” Greer explained.

Shaping ARRC Hub

The answers will help shape the future of ARRC Hub – the how ARRC tells its story to the generation that will inherit it.

Embedded within the ARRC precinct, ARRC Hub will connect residents, students, and businesses to the circular economy through hands-on learning and engagement.

Sustainability is consistently one of the top issues raised when Junior Council students talk about the city’s future, making ARRC a powerful opportunity for them to join the conversation about diverting waste from landfill and turning it into value.

Learning it for the first time

For Sophia from Trinity Lutheran College – an aspiring broadcast and travel journalist – the day showed exactly why that matters.

“I think it’s such an incredible program, and I think it’s so important for our generation to learn about,” she said.

“That’s my first time hearing about this, and I’m feeling incredibly lucky to learn.”

From recycled materials to real places

The students came armed with ideas. Raksha, 17, from St Hilda’s College, wanted to answer a deceptively simple question – if something is recycled, what does it become?

“Our idea was that it would be most engaging to answer this question through an installation, which showcases recycled or recovered materials and what they turn into – infrastructure around the city, parks and benches,” Raksha said.

“It would really show the community how meaningful the recycling is, and what their contributions become, and how they help others around the city.”

Hands-on learning, real consequences

Ashana from Palm Beach Currumbin – a future actuary, she hopes – tackled what happens when things go into the wrong bin.

“We suggested that we actually do a school volunteering excursion where we have a hands-on activity, with students who work alongside each other, to actually sort some of what goes into each bin,” Ashana said.

Tahlika from Helensvale State High backed social media as a channel to educate, with one condition: show people the consequences. Upon learning lithium batteries and vapes tossed into a green bin become a fire hazard at ARRC Organics, where they must be pulled out by hand from the 60,000 tonnes of green waste the facility processes each year, she didn’t miss a beat.

“If we see what happens if the wrong items get into our green bins – how much it affects us, what it does – that would spread even more awareness,” Tahlika said.

A future workforce in waste

For Timothy, a 16-year-old at Queensland Academy for Health Sciences considering a career in health or law, ARRC looks like a career signal.

“I think it has a lot of potential, especially because a lot of businesses nowadays are trying to get into that circular economy space,” Timothy said. “So, I think there’s a lot of demand for more sustainable methods of waste.”

“I think you can definitely incorporate it into the health career – especially with hospital waste or medical waste.”

Making sustainability feel possible

Keebra Park State High School teacher Fiona Fisher-Prince said the day worked because it made sustainability feel within reach.

“We can teach them about sustainability in a way where they feel like they’re a part of it, and they’re building their own future. That’s where you’re going to get them really participating and engaged in it,” Fiona said.

“Sustainability is so important – probably more so for them than us, because they’re the ones that are going to be here after we are.”

Her student Deshawn agrees. His plan A is professional footy. Plan B is an electrician. As of this week, there’s a plan C, starting immediately – collecting his family’s empty bottles for the 10-cent refund.

“It was really good to know about the environment and the recycling process, and learning about our surroundings – and just being able to help the community as well,” Deshawn said.

“If we just work as individuals, I don’t think we’ll be as effective. Working with the people around us makes the environment a hundred times better.”

“When we collect bottles, we could just put them in a plastic bag and take them to the ten-cent refund, to help out the community and environment. It’s always just little steps to big steps, you know what I mean?”

Watching the future take shape

By 2032, when ARRC Energy is proposed to become the first energy-from-waste facility on the eastern seaboard, these students will be in their early twenties.

On this workshop’s evidence, they’ll be watching closely – and sorting their bins.

Visit www.arrcgoldcoast.com to learn more, or have your say on ARRC Hub through our Community Space: www.arrccommunity.com/share-your-feedback

The Advanced Resource Recovery Centre (ARRC) has reached a significant milestone following Council’s endorsement of the Local Government Infrastructure Designation (LGID) for the ARRC precinct at Stapylton. 

LGID is a planning pathway that allows certain essential infrastructure projects in Queensland to be assessed by the State and designated by Council.  

It is designed for infrastructure considered important to the community or region, while still requiring environmental assessment, technical studies and other opportunities for public consultation. 

Gold Coast Mayor and ARRC Chair Tom Tate said the designation showed the city was planning decades ahead. 

“This is one of the most important infrastructure projects our city will ever deliver and today locks in the planning framework to make it happen,” Mayor Tate said. 

“Our region is running out of landfill and we need a modern solution that recovers more, buries less and keeps the Gold Coast ahead of its growth. 

“This milestone should give our community real confidence in the rigour behind it.” 

ARRC Gold Coast CEO Grant Gabriel said the designation was an important step in the city establishing the ARRC precinct. 

“The LGID gives us the planning framework to deliver Council’s master plan vision for the precinct,” Mr Gabriel said. 

“Further work will be required as each individual facility is brought forward, but this designation sets the foundation.” 

The milestone comes with the precinct’s Commonwealth environmental assessment also in its final stages. 

Public consultation on the project’s final environmental documentation under national environment law closed on 17 July, with submissions now being addressed before the documentation goes to the Federal Environment Minister for a decision. 

“While the LGID is an important planning milestone, ARRC will continue to be subject to ongoing environmental approvals, licensing requirements and regulatory oversight as planning and delivery activities continue,” Mr Gabriel said. 

Once complete, the ARRC precinct will increase resource recovery, reduce the city’s reliance on landfill and support a more circular economy for the Gold Coast and broader South East Queensland.

 

 

ARRC today welcomed the commencement of the public consultation period for the project’s Commonwealth Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) assessment process.

Most projects of ARRC’s scale and significance are subject to an EPBC assessment, which is designed to ensure potential environmental impacts are carefully assessed and appropriate safeguards are identified and implemented.

ARRC CEO Grant Gabriel said the current EPBC process formed an important part of the project’s broader environmental approvals pathway.

“To date, we’ve undertaken a very significant body of technical and environmental work to support ARRC’s EPBC assessment,” Mr Gabriel said.

“The consultation period now provides an opportunity for community members, stakeholders and interested organisations to review this material and provide feedback.”

More information about ARRC’s EPBC consultation process, assessment documentation and submission timetable can be obtained from ARRC’s Community Space.

Mimi Steele’s focus as ARRC’s Strategy Advisor is both deceptively simple and enormously complex: make sure every person in the organisation understands how their work connects to the City of Gold Coast’s most ambitious sustainability project.

In practice that means translating bold ambitions into individual Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that every team can own and act on.

Accounts and procurement. Communications and human resources. Project and asset management.

“A vision statement alone doesn’t deliver a next-generation waste precinct,” Mimi explained.

The person processing an invoice and the engineer managing an asset both need to be pulling in the same direction.

“Contributing to something bigger than yourself – knowing it will outlast you – has always driven me,” she said. “When I looked at ARRC, its mission felt completely aligned with that.”

Joining in May 2026, Mimi brought with her a Bachelor of Government and International Relations from Griffith University and seven years inside the City of Gold Coast that gave her an unusually complete understanding of how policy and community connect.

She worked across divisional offices and eventually the Office of the Mayor, watching policy take shape at the highest levels.

She also answered the Office’s external-facing phone. That meant being the voice residents heard when they called confused or curious about decisions shaping their city.

The loop between community and outcome, between intent and lived experience, is something she carries into her work at ARRC every day.

“It’s refreshing to work somewhere that a suggestion you make can directly and quickly change how something is done,” she said. “I think joining ARRC in its infancy makes that opportunity possible. I’m big on processes and I’ve been able to shape the ones that matter most to my role.”

Joining ARRC in its infancy has made that feel especially significant.

Building an organisation’s culture and operating rhythm from the ground up rather than inheriting someone else’s is an opportunity she hasn’t taken lightly.

She sees the precinct’s long-term potential extending well beyond the Gold Coast – a regional model others will look to as they work out how to manage waste more intelligently.

 

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