Learning Archives | Page 4 of 9

The one place for making a sustainable future possible

Learning

September 2, 2020

Highlights

Our experience with developing waste education programs has shown that a variety of formats and media types increases accessibility and take up from the community.

Tags: Website

Highlights

Our experience with developing waste education programs has shown that a variety of formats and media types increases accessibility and take up from the community.

Cleanaway’s Sustainable Future Hub is the online destination for waste management, recycling and education resources. Optimise your waste services, stay on top of the latest developments in resource recovery and learn how you can make a difference for sustainability in your business, community and industry.

The resources in our Hub are delivered in engaging visual formats and is updated regularly, so bookmark the page on your browser for convenient access across your viewing devices: https://www.cleanaway.com.au/sustainable-future-hub/

Sustainability For You

Our audience surveys regularly tell us that a significant barrier to recycling correctly is accurate and up-to-date information. Cleanaway’s A to Z Recycling Directory allows you to search for items and check for the right way to dispose of them. Can’t find an item? Let us know using the online form.

Advice may still be different from one region to another. This is because material recovery facilities around the country have different levels of technology for processing. We’ll let you know if you need to refer to your council for local recycling advice.

organized data for easy searching in Cleanaway’s A to Z Recycling Directory

Our experience with developing waste education programs has shown that a variety of formats and media types increases accessibility and take up from the community. The Resource Hub features educational downloads like recycling ebooks, instructional posters and fact sheets that help you put the right thing in the right bin. The Video Hub that is a treasure trove of entertaining sustainability tips, and behind-the-scenes information on what happens after we collect your waste.

Cleanaway Resource Hub

Greenius, our e-learning portal for waste and recycling education, uses videos, pictures, games and quizzes to teach recycling. Customisable and designed to address specific waste streams, businesses and councils are using Greenius to raise awareness for their sustainability goals and correct contamination.

We know that some of our best recyclers aren’t quite big enough to take out the wheelie bin yet. Check out the Schools Hub to find age-appropriate and award-winning programs, including online and printable games and resources.

From local waste drop offs events and green waste collections to online recycling campaigns, use the Events Hub to find and add the latest events to your personal diary. Don’t see an event listed? Let us know by submitting your event details using the online form.

Strategy

Our mission is to make a sustainable future possible for our customers, the communities where we operate, our people and our investors.

In this section we explain how our strategy for best in class management of our people, markets and assets leads to sustainability and strong financial performance.

Click on the icons to learn about the programs and initiatives within our business that underpin our strategic pillars. You can read about Our Cleanaway Way, the strategy on a page that gives our people clarity and the tools to achieve our mission, to make a sustainable future possible, live our company values and are aligned in our efforts to take our business from good to great.

strategy for a sustainable future

Footprint 2025

Footprint 2025 is our roadmap to ensure we have the right facilities in the right locations to support Australia’s waste needs, while continuing to improve resource recovery. We do this by investing in technology and facilities that enable higher rates of recovery and quality for reuse.

Use the interactive map to explore our network of state-of-the-art assets that recover resources from waste oil, plastic, glass, aluminium, and more.

interactive map

Visit the new Sustainable Future Hub today.

Why energy-from-waste for Western Sydney?

Learning - Resource Recovery

July 10, 2020

Highlights

The proposed WSERRC will create 900 direct and between 700 to 1200 indirect jobs during the three-year construction of the facility and will support 50 long-term operational roles to run the facility once constructed.

Tags: Energy-from-waste

Highlights

Cleanaway notes changes to NSW’s energy-from-waste policies and are currently considering long-term options moving forward. Information on this website may not be completely current based on changing conditions.

Sydney sends more than two million tonnes of waste to landfill every year which means there’s no further opportunity to reuse, recycle or recover value from that material.

Currently, there are only two commercial landfills that accept Sydney’s red bin waste – one at Lucas Heights and the other at Goulburn. If waste generation continues at current rates, projections estimate the closure of the Lucas Heights landfill by 2032 and the closure of the Goulburn landfill by 2042.

https://youtu.be/RJ3UiJxCnO8

It’s time we stopped seeing landfill as our only option for residual waste. The reason is two-fold. Firstly, using landfill is a missed opportunity for extracting valuable resources from waste. Secondly, it goes against current federal and state plans to waste less and recycle more. The NSW EPA has a target of diverting 75% of waste away from landfill but Sydney is currently achieving approximately 60% diversion.

With landfill closures quickly approaching and the need to increase diversion of waste from landfill, Sydney needs to work on maximising recycling, then finding a sustainable solution for the rest of the waste that cannot be recovered.

Maximising resources from ‘waste’

The circular economy is looked at as being a more sustainable model for consuming resources and managing the waste by-product. It focuses on breaking the traditional linear ‘make-take-dispose’ model where raw materials are used to make new products, used, then disposed of without the opportunity to recover resources.

A circular economy is about closing the loop on the products we consume by using recycled material in the remanufacturing process. From production to consumption to manufacturing, a circular economy brings a product back into the manufacturing process by closing the tail end.

circular economy

While a great deal of progress has been made towards a circular economy, breaking the current linear model requires significant and systematic change across the waste management ecosystem.

Governments need to drive policy to encourage a shift to a circular mindset and develop viable markets for the recycled product, communities need to be diligent about recycling their waste and industry needs to recover more resources from waste.

To this end, Cleanaway has invested in resource recovery facilities across Australia to maximise the value of waste as a resource. Some of our innovative resource recovery facilities in NSW and Australia, include:

Container Sorting Facility for NSW’s Container Deposit Scheme which has now seen more than 3 billion containers recycled
A processed engineered fuel (PEF) facility in Western Sydney which takes up to 250,000 tonnes of non-recyclable commercial and industrial (C&I) waste each year and turns it into sustainable fuel to replace coal in the cement industry
A 100,000 tonne per annum Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) processing facility in Dandenong, Victoria, that turns organic food waste into nutrient-rich fertiliser for use in agriculture
Investment in and restructure of the restructure of Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) in Victoria and Tasmania, to sort and process commingled recycling in the local market
A new plastic pelletising facility to be built in Albury Wodonga to process approximately 28,000 tonnes of plastic bottles each year into recycled material for onshore packaging manufacturing, through a joint venture with Pact and Asahi

Energy-from-waste for waste that cannot be recycled

A circular economy does not mean zero waste – there will always be residual waste that needs to be managed.
A recent analysis of municipal red bin waste in NSW showed that there is approximately 73% of waste in the red bin that can be recycled or composted if properly separated prior to disposal. This means that even with best practice recycling, there is still approximately a third of waste that has no recycling option available. This is where energy-from-waste technology comes in to manage the waste that would otherwise go to landfill.

Energy-from-waste has clear benefits in managing non-recyclable waste as energy recovery allows us to extract the maximum value from this waste that has no other recovery pathway. Energy-from-waste is not the solution to sustainable waste management, it is a supporting piece in a much larger waste management puzzle.

Energy-from-waste has been used safely and effectively overseas for decades, creating energy and heat from otherwise wasted resources. Following combustion, metals are recovered and recycled from the ash. The majority of ash is also suitable for reuse in construction processes. This is commonly done overseas and has led to some countries being able to divert 100% of waste away from landfill and reuse, recycle or recover energy from it.

To manage Sydney’s growing waste needs safely and sustainably well into the future, Cleanaway and Macquarie Capital have proposed an energy-from-waste facility – the Western Sydney Energy and Resource Recovery Centre (WSERRC). This facility would accept non-recyclable household and business waste and convert it into electricity for more than 79,000 homes and businesses.

recycling behaviours

Understanding that shifts in recycling behaviours, infrastructure and the corresponding waste generation will happen gradually, over a period of time, WSERRC will use thermal combustion technology to accommodate changes in waste composition, without impacting the operation or safety of the facility.

Read more about energy-from-waste technology, the role it plays in the waste management ecosystem and the common misconceptions that surround the technology.

Visit https://energyandresourcecentre.com.au/ or call 1800 97 37 72 for more information on WSERRC and to get involved.

From farm to bin? Breaking the chain of food waste

Learning - Our Services

July 8, 2020

Highlights

Nearly 25% of food produced in Australia ends up in the landfill before it can reach the shelves.

Tags: Organics

Highlights

Nearly 25% of food produced in Australia ends up in the landfill before it can reach the shelves.

According to a recent study by the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment and Refrigerants Australia, more than $3 billion of Australia’s annual food production is wasted while in transport or storage. The study indicates the opportunity is with manufacturers, logistics companies and retailers to avoid wastage in their role as part of the cold food chain.

The study raises a few interesting questions for businesses in any environment – what are you wasting, where is the waste coming from and how can it be avoided?

The first step is simply taking a good hard look at what’s in your bin and to really question, could it have been recovered? Could it have been sold? It might seem strange for a waste company to focus on food waste solution, but this is exactly Cleanaway’s approach to helping our customers achieve the best economic and environmental outcomes.

Helping customers reduce waste produced in the first place

Logic, and the food waste hierarchy, tells us that while recycling is good, preventing waste is even better.

In one supermarket waste health check, we discovered that multiple bags of flour were being binned regularly due to damage to the packaging while in transit. Once the handling of the bags was corrected with the transport company, the problem never resurfaced, saving the customer a lot on the heavy cost of flour in the general waste bin and stock loss.

In another example, our bin audit showed that a staff working for a wine and spirits business was throwing out entire slabs of beer even though only a couple of bottles were broken. After highlighting this to the management team, we never found another good bottle of beer in the bins again.

Some customers find opportunity to optimise operations and profit at multiple points in the production chain. A supply chain review with a baked goods manufacturer identified they were over-ordering stock and poorly managing inventory which was driving waste up. A simple change to their baking plans meant more efficient stock use, lower ordering costs and less waste.

Recovering resources from waste

Where waste avoidance is not possible, Cleanaway can help businesses recover food waste through our innovative organics recycling technology. Organics recycling offers a number of benefits to businesses including reducing the weight and cost of the general waste bin while improving landfill diversion and sustainability rates.

Our EPA-approved organics recovery facilities help cafes, shopping malls, kitchens, bakeries and other food and beverage businesses turn food waste into high-grade compost compost and mulch to be used a soil fertiliser.

For bulk food manufacturers and supermarkets, our food depackaging technology in Victoria takes large volumes of food or liquid packaged in aluminium, plastic, liquid paperboard or cardboard and separates the organic material to be recycled.

We also help retail, logistics and transportation customers recover resources from packaging such as cardboard and soft plastic through our dedicated bins and recycling services.

Interested to know more? Contact us for a tailored waste management service.

Behind-the-scenes: COVID-19 response

Learning

June 29, 2020

Highlights

Initially we started by using our traditional methods of communication such as tool box meetings, but realised very early on that having large numbers of people in a small room wasn’t going to make the requirements of social distancing.

Tags: COVID-19

Highlights

Cleanaway’s COVID-19 response with Rachel Irvine-Marshall (RIM), Head of Health and Safety and Regulatory Compliance and Samantha Shaw (SS), Head of Audit and Risk.

SS: Hi I’m Samantha Shaw and I’m the Head of Audit and Risk at Cleanaway and I’ve been here for two and a half years and I’d like to introduce you, at an appropriate social distance of course, to my colleague.

RIM: Hi, I’m Rachel Irvine-Marshall, and I’m Cleanaway’s Head of Health and Safety and Regulatory Compliance and I’ve been with the organisation for 13 years.

Building Cleanaway’s Emergency Response Plan

RIM: The first I heard of COVID-19 was through the media, and we started very early on getting queries through the safety team from both employees and customers, and Sam and I would have many conversations around how we’re going to start to respond to our employees.

SS: The primary conversation Rachel and I were having was maintaining the safety of our staff. Obviously that was coming through very strongly from the safety team, and as it arrived in Australia, the queries started to continue. At that point in early March where there had been one fatality in Australia, I think at that time there were 33 confirmed cases, we agreed we with Michael Bock and Jo Birgersson that we need to form a response team to deal with the queries and make sure that we had a consistent approach for our staff, for our customers. At that point we brought in HR as well, and we formed a regular team where we met on a daily basis.

SS: The first thing that we really needed to do was to develop our emergency management plan for a pandemic. It wasn’t something that we had in place, so we really needed to start that from scratch.
And the paramount consideration was protecting the safety of our employees.

So the emergency management plan really came together, it was quite fluid because things were changing very quickly. What we initially did was we structured our daily discussions around what the recent government advice was saying, how we were seeing our staff and employees impacted, how our customers were being impacted – so what information is coming through from our customers. We were looking at HR impacts, comms strategy, that was a critical piece of what we did, and we were also looking ensuring we were prepared from a safety perspective. And Rachel perhaps you could go more into detail into the safety piece.

RIM: From a safety perspective early on from our health business, we engaged an infection control specialist who really guided us through the additional controls we needed to continue providing our essential services. So we were able to look at things like how do I clean my truck, what happens if I had to have two people in a truck to deliver driver assessment, how do I conduct meetings or should I still have visitors come to the office. So we were able to use and work through the government’s advice and how we apply that through all Cleanaway tasks, and then harness our existing systems to build those controls.

SS: The next stage is to implement the emergency management plan and across the business. Obviously that requires the collaboration across all our business units so we worked closely with general managers, regional managers, safety teams and the HR team. My team, the internal audit team, was repurposed and taken off all internal audit and put on the COVID response plan to help businesses prepare their business continuity plans.

Every branch has their own business continuity plan, but none of those plans really address the issues of the pandemic. So we helped the business by running workshops to identify all the risks and thinking they need to put in place in terms of responding to a pandemic.

When we ran the workshops, we found that the business was already thinking about how they would respond and minimise the risks. That was fantastic – they had already done an awesome job so our role was around sharing our knowledge and ideas across all the different strategic business units.

Overcoming safety and communication challenges

RIM: One of the biggest challenges from a health and safety perspective was making sure that we secured the right PPE that we needed for the business, and that we were able to secure hygiene products such as hand sanitisers. And that really was a great challenge because supplies that come internationally became scarce in Australia.

A lot of those products were used in the healthcare industry where you’d expect to be prioritised but that meant that many of our shipments were diverted and that placed pressure on our current supplies. So the business was impacted when we were unable to get those supplies, just our normal PPE so things such as P2 dust masks that we use in our transfer stations, landfills and other dusty environments, if we were unable to secure the stocks, we would have to close those facilities.

SS: The most challenging part about the process for me, I’d say, was two-fold. One was the fluidity of the issue we were dealing with. When everyone talks about it being an unprecedented event, and it certainly is, so something that none of us have dealt with before, so we needed to move fast and respond fast. And that leads me to the second biggest challenge, and that’s around communications because it’s so important for us to communicate to our staff and contractors as well, so having clear communications to everybody was a challenge because not everybody has email and portal access. So we need to make sure that our comms got to everybody.

RIM: Initially we started by using our traditional methods of communication such as tool box meetings, but realised very early on that having large numbers of people in a small room wasn’t going to make the requirements of social distancing.

SS: We developed a query line and email where everyone can send in their queries and we used that as our FAQs that we answered and updated on a daily basis. That was all printed out and sent to each of the sites every day so that people could keep up to speed with the messages that we were sending out. And really that was the response to the questions that were coming in from across the business. The other thing we did was using our text messages, and that’s another way to ensure that the FAQs have been updated and that there was new information for everyone to look at.

What’s next?

RIM: So what comes next? We’ve now started to move into planning, before bringing everyone back to work.

SS: I think the important thing here is that we will continue to follow the guidance of the Australian government and health officials and whilst we have seen the numbers have started to reduce, we are starting to plan to return to work.

Learn more about Cleanaway’s Emergency Response Plan and COVID-19 response here.

Good business guide to plastic

Learning

June 23, 2020

Highlights

This Plastic Free July, we’re offering you a free guide to optimising plastic use to get you started on your sustainability journey

Tags: Plastic Free July

Highlights

This Plastic Free July, we’re offering you a free guide to optimising plastic use to get you started on your sustainability journey

Sustainability credentials are more than a nice-to-have, they can save on long-term operational costs and build a loyal customer base to weather any variations in operating climate. While there are many things you can do to optimise your business for sustainability, a good place to start is to look at your plastic use.

Why is it important for businesses to use plastics sustainably?

Using plastic sustainably can help:

Reduce business expenses
The less plastic waste is generated, the lighter your bins will be. This means optimised waste management fees, saving you money in the long run. Opting for reusable alternatives also means reducing the frequency and cost of restocking disposable plastic items.
Earn green points from customers
Minimising your plastic waste impact and being part of a sustainable supply chain can raise brand reputation. This appeals to both new and potential customers, giving you a competitive edge.

This Plastic Free July, we’re offering you a free guide to optimising plastic use to get you started on your sustainability journey.

Learn about the plastic waste hierarchy and how you can reduce plastic contamination in recycling. Then, take action on your plastic waste with our plastic waste health check and plastic minimisation tips for every sector.

Energy-from-waste: Concerns and facts

Learning

Highlights

When implemented mindfully to complement recycling, reuse and reduction initiatives, energy-from-waste can be an incredibly effective tool for recovering resources from waste with no other recovery pathway.

Tags: Energy-from-waste

Highlights

Energy-from-waste is a waste management solution that has been widely and safely used overseas for decades. The technology has been refined over time and is now established as a critical pathway for managing non-recyclable residual waste.

Cleanaway and Macquarie Capital are proposing an energy-from-waste facility in NSW. This facility will turn non-recyclable red bin waste into electricity to power thousands of homes in Western Sydney. Read more about the role of energy-from-waste in waste management here.

Despite its broad use in Europe, energy-from-waste is new to Australians and the technology is poorly understood. Many still associate energy-from-waste with less advanced incinerators of the past, that have not benefitted from the technological advances made since.

For this reason, communities rightly have questions about the technology, its safety and how it works within the context of other waste management options such as recycling. This article aims to raise some of these concerns and provide factual, research-backed evidence to explain the misconceptions in the context of the WSERRC proposal.

Technology
Concern: Incinerators are outdated and ‘energy-from-waste’ is just an incinerator in disguise

Fact: A significant misconception is that energy-from-waste facilities are the same as the commercial incinerators of past.

Whilst energy-from-waste also combusts waste, there are two key differences between a modern facility and the facilities of the past.

Firstly, the facilities are highly engineered to minimise air pollution and protect human health. The facilities are designed to ensure complete combustion of waste occurs, reducing pollutant gases forming and the ash remaining at the end of combustion.

Modern facilities are now also equipped with extensive and efficient Flue Gas Treatment (FGT) systems. These FGT systems have multiple steps that clean the gases, making sure that emissions are at safe levels before they leave the facility.

Secondly the facilities have the ability to recover energy from items destined to be wasted in landfill. Energy-from-waste plants use the heat from the process to turn water into steam, driving a turbine which generates electricity to power homes and businesses.

Concern: Energy-from-waste is being phased out overseas due to concerns with air quality

Fact: Energy-from-waste, as an industry, is not being phased out. What we see occurring is:
a) the closure of older facilities with outdated technology
b) increased support for recycling, reuse and reduction initiatives
Some operators have made the decision to invest in upgrading their facilities to ensure that they are adhering to updated emissions standards and utilising best practice operating techniques and technologies.

Globally, new energy-from-waste facilities are still being built.

Emissions and Health
Concern: Studies show that living near an energy-from-waste facility can be harmful to health

Fact: The most recent studies by reputable independent researchers show that modern plants do not cause identifiable changes in health effects surrounding facilities. These researchers have also put up a series of frequently asked questions and answers about these studies which you can access here.

Studies for older plants do show adverse impact from facilities built without pollution control technologies. That is why the plants like the Waverley Woollahra Incinerator was closed down by the NSW EPA in the 1990s. That is also why the European Union started doing systematic reviews of the engineering of such plants to work out what was best practice and how such plants should be safely designed. This has resulted in many facilities being upgraded to incorporate these modern standards.

Concern: The incineration process emits a large amount of harmful particulate matter

Fact: We are always exposed to small particles from burning/combustion from everyday sources such as cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, smoking, woodfires in our homes, candles, bushfires, power stations and more. The goal for managing air pollution is to keep the levels as low as possible and for new facilities to not make any significant, or measurable changes to ambient air quality.

Studies on large groups of people in cities that are used by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) or the World Health Organisation (WHO) give us a basis for understanding what level of effect is small enough to make no measurable difference to ambient air levels.

WHO published a summary of air quality for cities across the world where particulate matter (PM10) levels were studied and compared. Only Wellington in New Zealand had a lower average level of PM10 compared to Sydney, which is mainly due to Wellington’s position on a windy peninsula. The whole report can be accessed here.

data and graphs

The mechanisms for how particles cause harm in the body has been studied extensively. Much of the harm comes from the body’s immune response (inflammation) caused by prolonged exposure to high levels of particles. This is why the WHO recommended criteria for annual average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is 10 µg/m3. The NSW EPA has a criterion of 8µg/m3, one of the most stringent in the world.

In a modern plant, the generation of particles is minimised in the first place by good furnace design, and the vast majority of the particles generated are captured by the flue gas treatment system. Only very low levels of these particles are emitted via a stack so as to ensure they are well dispersed high up into the air. This reduces any potential impact that may arise at ground level where people may be present.

Concern: Emissions from incinerators contaminate drinking water

Fact: The potential for particles to fall into the water supply such as Sydney’s Prospect Reservoir is something that will be assessed in detail in the human health risk assessment. Given that very small amounts of particles will be released from this plant, it is not expected that changes in concentrations in the reservoir would be even measurable, but to ensure thoroughness, this will be checked in the assessment process.

All drinking water contains low levels of most metals like arsenic, cadmium and nickel. Water authorities such as Sydney Water in NSW must supply water to our homes that complies with the drinking water guidelines.

Given the low water solubility of chemicals like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or POPs, and the fact that Sydney Water must always treat water from Prospect Reservoir by filtering it through very fine filters before sending it to our homes, it is unlikely that particles containing these chemicals from an energy-from-waste facility or from any other combustion source will be present in our drinking water.

Regulatory
Concern: NSW’s regulatory controls are outdated

Fact: The NSW energy-from-waste policy enforces the use of world’s best practice technology and emission controls. The policy explicitly states that:

“To ensure emissions are below levels that may pose a risk of harm to the community, facilities proposing to recover energy from waste will need to meet current international best practice techniques, particularly with respect to:

• process design and control
• emission control equipment design and control
• emission monitoring with real-time feedback to the controls of the process”

This requirement ensures that, regardless of the NSW limits, that any energy recovery facility will perform to international top standards. The European IED standards are the most stringent in the world. Given continuous improvements in emissions performance in modern energy-from-waste plants, the EU has recently passed the BREF (Best available technique REFerence document) limits which are significantly lower than the existing IED limits.

Concern: Energy-from-waste facilities should not be located in urban areas

Fact: Internationally, energy-from-waste facilities are commonly located in urban areas. For example, there are multiple energy-from-waste facilities near the heart of Paris located in residential areas. This is because modern energy-from-waste facilities are safe.

For an energy-from-waste facility to be considered for approval in NSW, the submission must first prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Within this EIS is the requirement to conduct a Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA). This HHRA considers the risk of harm to the community that these potential pollutants may cause and must include calculations of how much of the emissions people will be exposed to at the worst-case location. This is the spot where the concentrations in air impacted by the facility are the highest and is usually very close to the facility.

To assess the highest possible exposure that may occur, it is assumed a person lives at that worst-case impacted location for 24 hours per day, 365 days per year for 35 years from birth. The government requires that the calculations for the worst-case location are within guidelines. If not, the location is simply not approved for use.

The assessment will also include calculations at the actual closest houses, workplace, schools and childcare centres nearby and must specifically demonstrated compliance to standards.

Recycling and the circular economy
Concern: Energy-from-waste will reduce recycling rates and is contrary to a circular economy

Fact: There is a misconception that because energy-from-waste facilities run 24/7, recycling will be used to ‘feed the beast’. This is inaccurate. In the case of the proposed Western Sydney Energy and Resource Recovery Centre, up to 500,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste will be accepted. This is less than a third of the waste generated by Western Sydney alone. Even with a reduction in waste generation and improved recycling, there will still be ample non-recyclable waste that needs to be managed.

It is also not in a waste management operator’s interest to burn recyclables. Recyclable materials are valuable commodities and it does not make economic or environmental sense for them to be taken to an energy-from-waste facility. Cleanaway owns and operates recycling facilities in Sydney, including a Container Deposit Facility for NSW’s Return and Earn scheme. We have also recently entered into a partnership with Asahi and Pact Group to take recovered plastic and recycle it back into bottles – a true circular process!

Concerns that energy-from-waste will prevent progress towards a circular economy are also misguided. When implemented mindfully to complement recycling, reuse and reduction initiatives, energy-from-waste can be an incredibly effective tool for recovering resources from waste with no other recovery pathway.

Concern: Large quantities of toxic ash will need to be landfilled

Fact: Approximately 20-25% of the total mass of waste processed by the energy-from-waste facility remains after the process as ash.

This ash is made up of two components, incinerator bottom ash (IBA) and Flue Gas Treatment residues (FGTr). IBA is inert, containing combusted waste and non-combustible items such as ceramics, glass and metals. The metals are recovered and recycled (this metal would have otherwise gone to landfill). Overseas, the bottom ash is commonly repurposed into construction products, often used for road base and other non-structural uses.

The FGTr is a combination of fly ash and the air pollution control consumables and does require landfilling due to its hazardous properties. Fly ash is essentially the solidified emissions captured in the Flue Gas Treatment system and will need to be treated before being landfilled. However, the FGTr is only around 2-5% of the original mass.

This means that many modern energy-from-waste facilities are able to divert ~95% of non-recyclable waste that enters their facilities away from landfill.

Visit energyandresourcecentre.com.au to learn more about the WSERRC proposal or contact us at 1800 97 37 72 to get involved.

Fraser Road landfill rehabilitation: progress to May 2020

Take a look at the level of design and engineering that goes into rehabilitating a closed landfill. Our site at Fraser Road Landfill is being prepared to allow for vegetation growth and optimised for safety into the future.

Learning

June 18, 2020

Tags: Landfill

Highlights

Cleanaway currently manages and oversees the rehabilitation of Fraser Road landfill.

Landfills are highly engineered facilities, designed to contain and control waste while protecting the environment.

The first step in rehabilitation involves reshaping onsite material to form the final profile.

At Fraser Road, approximately 650,000 cubic metres of ‘cut to fill’ was performed to achieve final top of waste contours. This involves excavation and placement of materials to create a foundation for capping layers and geosynthetics.

Over 250,000 square metres of engineered soil layer has been placed to date.

Installation of cap lining

Four geosynthetic layers have been installed as a composite system, working together to create a barrier from the waste.

Geosythetic clay liner
Geotextile
Geomembrane
Drainage geocomposite

To date, over 750,000 square metres of geosysthetics have been installed.

In the coming months, we will be placing subsoil and topsoil at Fraser Road to cover the geosynthetics and allow for vegetation growth. Post rehabilitation, ongoing maintenance and monitoring will also be undertaken.

Leachate ponds compound

Water coming into contact with waste creates leachate. Leachate is stored in ponds and is treated before being disposed of offsite. Fraser Road has six dedicated leachate ponds with a total capacity of approximately 65 million litres.

Pond 5 was upgraded in Nov/Dec 2019 to improve performance and prepare it for new aerators.

Learn more about leachate management here.

Fast facts

Fraser Road landfill was closed in June 2017
Rehabilitation works began in June 2019
We are currently installing geosynthetics, placing subsoil and constructing stormwater infrastructure
Cap construction is planned for completion by early 2021

Energy-from-waste: a piece of the waste management puzzle

Learning

May 19, 2020

Highlights

Energy-from-waste is one of the most highly regulated industries in the world, resulting in the continuous refinement of the technology over the years

Tags: Energy-from-waste

Highlights

Energy-from-waste is one of the most highly regulated industries in the world, resulting in the continuous refinement of the technology over the years

Population growth, increase in consumption, diminishing landfill space and strict quality requirements in recycling markets are putting pressure on waste management systems across the world. Energy-from-waste is a safe and sustainable way of managing residual waste that cannot be recycled.

The role of energy-from-waste in waste management

The waste hierarchy demonstrates how to maximise the value from waste as a resource as the quality of that material reduces. It reflects the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra that we used to repeat in school, with a couple of new steps to round it out.

waste hierarchy

The most preferred method of managing waste is to avoid it in the first place. Where this isn’t possible, the next steps are to ‘reduce’ the amount of waste created, to ‘reuse’ materials in their original or repurposed form, to ‘recycle’ the material into a new product, to ‘recover’ resource such as energy from waste that can’t be recycled, and then finally treating waste for final disposal.

To manage waste better, we need to find ways to work at higher levels of the waste hierarchy.

How countries around the world are managing their waste

Europe’s advanced waste management systems are decades ahead of the rest of the world. Unlike Australia, many European cities are land-poor meaning they needed to find alternatives to landfill decades ago.

advanced waste management systems

Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands are all achieving upwards of 99% diversion of household waste from landfill compared to Australia’s 55%. Interestingly, their rates of recycling and composting are similar to ours, but these countries have managed to divert more waste than we have. While there is certainly improvement to be made in recycling more, there is still a significant gap.

What’s the missing link?

Energy-from-waste for waste that cannot be recycled

Energy-from-waste is used to describe the process of taking waste that cannot be recycled, applying combustion technology to recover stored energy, then converting it into electricity and heat that can be used by businesses and communities. There are currently more than 2000 energy-from-waste facilities operating across the world.

Pictured: Energy-from-waste plant in Lakeside, London with 100% diversion rate.

Why is energy-from-waste so popular?

Energy-from-waste has clear benefits in managing non-recyclable waste. It has been used safely and effectively overseas for decades and it creates energy and heat from otherwise wasted resources.

While energy-from-waste is not the single solution to sustainable waste management, it is an important piece of the waste management puzzle.

Works hand-in-hand with recycling
Energy-from-waste does not cannibalise or remove the need for recycling. It works alongside recycling processes, and even contributes to recycling outcomes through the recovery of metals out of the ash. Because the technology is used only for unrecyclable waste, it enhances the need for education on best recycling practices – a need that many energy-from-waste projects actively support communities and businesses with.

Countries such as Germany and Netherlands have achieved very high recycling rates and use energy-from-waste to deal with unrecyclable waste. Many world-class facilities have an education centre onsite to encourage learning about all levels of the waste hierarchy and how energy-from-waste and recycling fits within it.

Highly engineered and regulated
Many people associate energy-from-waste with the old incinerators of the past, however, modern energy-from-waste facilities are highly engineered to ensure the best environmental performance.

Control systems and emissions are tightly regulated and closely monitored by governing bodies. In fact, energy-from-waste is one of the most highly regulated industries in the world, resulting in the continuous refinement of the technology over the years.

Safe for the environment and people
Approximately half of the size of these facilities are dedicated to multi-step flue gas treatment systems that clean the gases before they leave the facility. This ensures that emissions are safe and do not pose a risk to surrounding communities or the environment.

Energy-from-waste also provides environmental benefits through net reductions in climate change causing gases. Generally, these savings are created through the avoidance of methane gas (generated when organic material breaks down in landfill) which is 25-28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
These facilities also do not emit odour as they suck air into the facility and the combustion process destroys odour molecules.

Social benefits for communities
Energy-from-waste facilities creates jobs in construction and in operating and maintaining facilities. Many facilities (such as the Dublin energy-from-waste facility) also support residents through community funds for the development of educational, recreational, or environmental projects and works which benefit the local area.

Western Sydney Energy and Resource Recovery Centre (WSERRC)

WSERRC is a proposed energy-from-waste facility that turns non-recyclable red bin waste into electricity to power thousands of homes in Western Sydney. It is modelled on modern facilities that exist overseas, carrying the same safety credentials and delivering the same environmental, social and economic benefits enjoyed by international communities.

Located at Wallgrove Road in the industrial area of Eastern Creek, WSERRC will be designed and constructed using international best practice and technology. Using the most proven combustion technology used worldwide, called moving grate technology, and a best-in-class flue gas treatment system, WSERRC aims to convert 500,000 tonnes of waste (just 1/3 of western Sydney’s red bin waste!) to generate enough electricity to power over 65,000 homes and businesses.

There will also be the recovery of metals from the ash for recycling – metals that would otherwise be sent to landfill, and reuse of the ash in construction processes. Once accepting waste, the WSERRC will create a net reduction of climate change gases equivalent to more than 450,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. This is the same as around 100,000 cars off our roads annually!

The construction of WSERRC will create over 800 jobs and there will be in excess of 50 local jobs created to operate the Centre. A state-of-the-art Visitor and Education Centre will also be constructed as an integral part of the facility, providing a central hub for the community to learn about waste as a resource, recycling, the circular economy and energy from waste – complete with tours accessible by all.

Visit energyandresourcecentre.com.au to learn more about the WSERRC proposal or contact us at 1800 97 37 72 to get involved.

Melbourne Energy and Resource Centre (MERC)

By 2046 Victoria is forecast to send an estimated 5.9 million tonnes of waste to landfill each year*. That’s enough to fill almost 5,000 Olympic size swimming pools or 7.8 MCGs, every year.

Residual waste is the general waste we put in the bin after we have reduced, reused and recycled. It also includes residual commercial waste from industrial and demolition sources. Currently, all of Victoria’s residual waste is being sent to landfill for disposal.

Landfills take up vast areas of land to bury useful resources. Cleanaway operates a range of recycling programs and facilities to divert waste from landfill. However, there will always be waste that cannot be avoided, reused or recycled. Cleanaway is investing in a sustainable alternative to landfills for this residual waste.

The MERC will product green energy for over 70,000 homes, create over 800 jobs during construction along with 50 local highly skilled ongoing jobs.

To learn more about the Melbourne Energy Resource Centre and to ask questions visit https://caportal.com.au/cleanaway/merc/

Your sink is not a rubbish bin

Learning - Our Services

May 14, 2020

Highlights

Items such as wet wipes and tissues can build up in pipes and lead to blockages

Tags: Grease traps

Highlights

Items such as wet wipes and tissues can build up in pipes and lead to blockages

Since stay-at-home restrictions started, reports have emerged of increased blockages and backflows caused by households flushing cleaning wipes, rags and cooking oil down the drain.

Just last month, a 42-tonne fatberg bigger than the size of a petrol tanker was found in a Melbourne drain that took a crew of 8 people, 9 hours to remove. Fatbergs are created when wet wipes stick together to fats and oils poured down drains, sinks and toilets, causing massive blockages and damage to sewer pipes.

Here are four simple tips to avoid an at-home fatberg emergency:

1. Keep fats, oil and grease (FOG) out of your kitchen sink
Cooking oil, grease and fats can create unsightly plumbing issues in the home and nasty blockages known as fatbergs that can block entire streets when poured down the sink – and it becomes worse when FOG gets mixed with other items in the sewage system like paper towels, wipes and nappies.

Put your used FOG into a sealable container and place in your general waste bin. Your local area may also accept cooking oil and grease in the compost or organics bin, so check with your local council before disposal.

2. ONLY flush toilet paper down the toilet
Tissues, kitchen towels, and wet wipes (even “flushable” wipes) should never be flushed down the toilet. Always dispose them in your general waste bin and never in your recycling bin. Items such as wet wipes and tissues don’t break down in the sewage system, causing build ups in the pipes.

3. Safely dispose of hazardous household chemicals
Don’t pour old cleaning liquids, powders, paint and other household chemicals down the drain or into the ground. These hazardous chemicals can corrode pipes and waterways, leading to structural damage and safety issues.

Instead, keep chemicals in their original packaging, or pack them into sealed containers if needed, then contact your local council to find the nearest open hazardous waste drop-off points.

4. Put your bins out the night before
Bin collection times may have been adjusted to ensure we’re able to get through all our services while adhering to social distancing and safety measures. Put your bins out the night before, keep a safe social distance of at least 1 metre between bins and free of obstructions like poles or trees. Check with your local council for the latest advice and bin placement guidelines.

Your waste and recycling services during COVID-19

Learning

April 8, 2020

Highlights

Service times have changed, but the need to get recycling right has not – it's now more important to protect our families and waste service employees.

Tags: COVID-19

Highlights

Service times have changed, but the need to get recycling right has not – it's now more important to protect our families and waste service employees.

As we spend more time at home due to COVID-19, maintaining good waste and recycling habits is critical to avoid disruptions to waste management systems. Here’s what you can do to help us maintain your waste and recycling services.

Bin placement and collection time updates

To ensure we can get to all households while keeping our drivers safe, we have updated our collection and bin placement advice.

Put your bin out the night before
Collections may start earlier than usual, so put your bins out the night before to ensure it won’t be missed.
Ensure there are no obstructions
As more of us are staying home from work, there are more cars parked on the streets. Make sure that your bins are not obstructed by cars, trees or poles. Drivers will not be able to manually handle your bins during this time.
“Socially distance” your bins
Keep your bins about 1 metre apart from each other to ensure your bins can be serviced by our trucks.
Don’t approach our drivers
You can still say hello and wave at our drivers from far, but please keep a safe social distance. If you forget to take your bin out, don’t run after our trucks. Contact your local council to arrange for a missed bin pickup instead.

DOWNLOAD: You can also learn more by downloading our poster here. Always check with your local council for the latest advice.

Recycling correctly

It’s now more important than ever to continue recycling correctly, and it takes only a few minutes to get it right. Follow these general rules:

Items you can always recycle
Cardboard boxes, hard plastic containers like shampoo bottles and milk jugs, paper items like newspapers, along with aluminium and steel food and drink cans are items that can always be recycled.
Break recycling down into component parts
Wherever possible, break your recyclables into their component parts, like taking the lids off your plastic containers and keep them in a separate container. For cardboard boxes, flatten them to maximise space in the bin.
Keep recycling clean and dry
Ensure all recyclables placed into your commingled recycling bin are clean and dry. You don’t have to wash them in the sink – just give them a quick rinse and ensure there’s no food or liquid residue before placing them in the bin.
Always place recyclables loose in the bin
Never bag your recyclables or put them into a plastic bag. Just place them loose in the bin. Bagged recyclables are treated as contamination and may cause a truck full of recycling be sent to landfill.

DOWNLOAD: For a refresher on what goes into your bin, check out our poster. Remember, when in doubt, leave it out of your bin. It just takes one contaminant and your recycling efforts may go to waste.

Keep contaminants out

Contamination reduces the quality of the recyclables we collect. Contamination occurs when we put the wrong things in the recycling bin. In extreme cases, contaminants such as sharps or a gas tank in a commingled recycling bin can pose a safety risk to waste employees. The top three contaminants you should always leave out of your recycling bin are:

Food and liquids cannot be processed in a commingled recycling bin and can damage certain recyclables. Recycle them as compost or put into your general waste bin.
Textiles are not recyclable through the commingled recycling bin. Repurpose, donate or place them in your general waste bin instead.
Bagged recyclables are treated as contamination. Never bag your recyclables or put them into a plastic bag. Just place your recycling loose in the bin.