Sydney (AFP) – Landowner Inoke Tora took the bus to Suva, Fiji's capital, on Tuesday to deliver a petition from villagers opposed to a huge waste incineration project, worried about its consequences for the environment.

Published on: 04/23/2026 - 08:21

Australian entrepreneurs Ian Malouf, who made his fortune in waste processing, and Rob Cromb, active in ready-to-wear clothing, want to build a port and an incinerator less than 15 kilometers from Nadi, the tourist gateway to the Pacific archipelago.

“There are hundreds of people who live in villages there and they fish every day, eat fresh crabs. They call this beach paradise,” says Inoke Tora interviewed by telephone by AFP while he was on his way to submit the petition to the Prime Minister of Fiji.

Its detractors fear that the incinerator will harm the archipelago's reputation for eco-tourism, contaminate the environment and transform the archipelago into a destination for waste that other countries - Australia in the lead - do not want.

"Colonialism"

Estimated at around 500 million euros, the project provides for a capacity of 900,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste treated per year.

According to the entrepreneurial duo behind it, it could cover 40% of the electricity needs of the very isolated nation of 900,000 inhabitants spread across dozens of islands, and reduce its dependence on diesel.

But an environmental impact study filed by their own company, TNG, estimates that the plant would also increase greenhouse gas emissions by 25% in Fiji, a country on the front lines of climate change and rising seas.

While the government assures that the project is under review, Fiji's ambassador to the United Nations, Filipo Tarakinikini, criticized it on social media on Monday, warning that the Vuda coast, north of Nadi, should not "become the ashtray of the Pacific".

The diplomat is concerned about the contamination risks posed by toxic and dioxin fallout as well as the predicted possibility of up to 700,000 tonnes per year of non-recyclable waste being sent to Fiji from abroad, which he describes as "waste colonialism".

“Real concerns”

Ian Malouf spent seven years trying to build a similar incinerator on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, before authorities rejected the project in 2018 due to health risks.

Stephen Bali, the mayor who then led the opposition to the project, urges Fiji to request independent analyzes, particularly noting emissions linked to transport from Australia: "We must manage our own waste".

Ian Malouf did not respond to AFP's requests for comment, while Rob Cromb acknowledged "real concerns about environmental safety, transparency and the scale of the proposal", ensuring that they would be "taken seriously".

The entrepreneur organized information meetings with the local residents concerned in Fiji, where he was born and with whom he maintains commercial links. The ready-to-wear brand Kookai, which he runs in Australia and New Zealand, makes clothes there. Rob Cromb bought the entire company created in Paris in 2017 but its French activities have since been placed in receivership and partly resold.

In a statement to AFP, the businessman refutes the idea of ​​a project consisting of "importing waste" into his native archipelago, although documents filed with the government stipulate that the incinerator would be likely to process garbage from Australia and the rest of the region.

Opponents see it as a violation of a 1998 convention signed by Australia, which prohibits the shipment of hazardous waste to any Pacific island nation.

Mr Cromb says the aim is to deal with the waste generated in Fiji while meeting energy needs. It highlights the environmental advantages of incinerating waste rather than burying it, as well as recovering it by producing electricity and thus reducing the consumption of hydrocarbons.

Systems for producing energy from non-recyclable waste, he insists, "are widely used in jurisdictions that have among the strictest environmental protections in the world."

© 2026 AFP

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