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It was a memorable win for our colleagues in South Coast and Silverwater who had to support a 50% uplift in waste volumes last year.
Resilience in the face of adversity – this is what Cleanaway’s NSW Health Services team demonstrated throughout a particularly challenging 2021.
NSW Health Services was recently named Winner of the 2021 Star Awards for Team.
Cleanaway’s Star Awards recognise and reward our most dedicated team members helping to make a sustainable future possible.
Pictured: NSW Health Services’ South Coast team (top) and Silverwater team (bottom)
The teams in our two NSW locations, South Coast and Silverwater, ensured uninterrupted service and community support in the face of the COVID-19 wave last year.
It was a monumental effort that required everyone to pitch in and support one another to manage a 50% uplift in waste volumes. This surge required changes to process flows, setting up of alternative sites and offload areas, and deployment of bin tipping and bin washing services in record time.
The teams also had to juggle their resources and assets while working to capacity.
Persistence was key in providing professional and friendly responses to the many requests coming through from customers across the whole of NSW.
We would like to congratulate all members of the South Coast and Silverwater teams for a job well done!
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia while ensuring safe disposal of medical waste.
Cleanaway wins Coles Service Champion of the Year Award
Cleanaway wins the Coles Service Champion of the Year Award for its leading role with Coles to reduce waste and support resource recovery.
Our Services - Resource Recovery
February 3, 2022
Highlights
“The scale of our servicing is a testament to the commitment of the whole Cleanaway team who work together to give each Coles location a great service and sustainability experience.”
“The scale of our servicing is a testament to the commitment of the whole Cleanaway team who work together to give each Coles location a great service and sustainability experience.”
The 2021 Coles Supplier Awards celebrates creative Australian businesses which are leading the way in sustainability, community and health innovation. As Coles’ trusted waste partner, Cleanaway supports Coles towards their “Together to Zero Waste” ambition and was awarded the Coles Service Champion of the Year Award for its leading role in reducing waste and improving resource recovery.
Strategic National Account Manager Nicole Henwood said, “It’s very exciting for the team to win the Service Champion of the Year Award. We manage 55,000 pick-ups of waste each month from stores and continue to support Coles to reach its 85% diversion from landfill target by 2025 through continued education and infrastructure investment.”
“The scale of our servicing is a testament to the commitment of the whole Cleanaway team who work together to give each Coles location a great service and sustainability experience.”
As part of our service, we developed the Coles Waste & Recycling Guide to provide information on all waste services and guidelines to establish efficient waste management processes and delivered over 750 education sessions to stores across FY21 to help improve waste management processes.
Pictured: Coles Waste & Recycling Guide
“Educational videos for stores provided store team members with another way to understand waste processes to maximise waste diversion while our National Recycling Week campaign and online education platform Greenius provide waste education to customers across Australia.” Nicole explained.
Cleanaway’s four-year partnership with Coles has seen a significant shift in diversion culture and performance across Coles Group, demonstrating our joint commitment towards making a sustainable future possible.
Throughout FY21 Cleanaway implemented waste diversion strategies that saw over 181,000 tonnes of cardboard, 6,200 tonnes of plastic pallet wrap, and 20,000 tonnes of organic food waste diverted from landfill.
Coles and Cleanaway have partnered on diversion initiatives that enabled Coles to reduce general waste by 10.5% in FY21, from 76,742 tonnes to 68,646 tonnes.
Strategically, Coles and Cleanaway partnered on the development of innovative food waste depackaging technology, a first for the southeast Queensland market. This technology allows store food waste to be diverted from landfill, without adding cumbersome depackaging tasks for team members.
Cleanaway expanded food waste services to over 500 additional supermarket and Express stores across FY21, bringing the total number of Coles sites with food waste services to 925, enabling more stores than ever to divert food that is unsalable and unfit for food rescue.
Plastic is a necessary packaging requirement, however, creates a recycling challenge. Cleanaway developed a solution to collect and recycle mixed pre-consumer plastics used by Coles stores across Sydney. This collection has enabled over 130 tonnes of mixed plastics to be diverted from landfill in FY21.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
When it comes to introducing new recycling programmes to residents, the reactions can be a mixed bag. This is exactly what the Cleanaway education team was anticipating when they were approached by Randwick City Council to kick start a Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) service at Newington Towers.
Pictured: The Cleanaway education team engaging with a Newington Towers resident via a pop-up information session.
To get off on the right foot, Cleanaway Resource Recovery Officer (RRO) Abiola Ishola set out to engage with the residents two months ahead of the FOGO service commencement.
Abiola realised immediately the unique challenges facing his team: Newington Towers has a transient student population and this was hindering the complex from achieving its existing waste management strategies. The amount of commingle recyclables that was ending up in the general waste bins indicated a low engagement with recycling systems, so it was clear the Cleanaway team had their work cut out for them.
Abiola and the team started off by organising a pop-up information session where Newington Tower residents received information in several languages on the upcoming FOGO service. This was followed by education sessions and meetings with the body corporate manager and building manager, with the goal of designing a suitable waste management strategy. Signage and educational collateral were also deployed at strategic locations within the complex.
The team’s hard work paid off. Within only five months, 6.8 tonnes of FOGO was diverted from landfill – approximately 500% higher than the initial recovery estimates projected for Newington Towers.
Randwick City Council is now planning to model the Newington Towers engagement strategy for similarly sized residential complexes where it has been challenging to have a coordinated approach to waste management.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
On 18 December 2021 Cleanaway acquired from Suez seven post-collections assets in the Sydney basin, including 95 skilled team members who had been operating the assets. The collection of facilities will be known as Sydney Resource Network (SRN) and complements Cleanaway’s existing footprint of waste processing facilities in NSW.
The $501 million acquisition comprises two landfill operations (Lucas Heights, Kemps Creek) and five transfer stations (Auburn, Artarmon, Belrose, Rockdale, Ryde) and delivers an immediate solution for Cleanaway to internalise waste processing in the Sydney region.
Cleanaway’s integration team carried out detailed planning over several months to ensure a smooth transition for employees, customers and suppliers involved across the seven facilities.
Head of Operations – Integration, Stuart Baird, who is leading the SRN team said “I’m excited to be welcoming these facilities and the expert operators behind them into the Cleanaway fold. These seven sites fill a gap in our capabilities, and now we can recover more resources from our waste streams and methane from our landfills to make a sustainable future possible.”
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mark Schubert, said “Cleanaway is an organisation that works hard to do the right thing by our people and our customers. What we do is essential to the safe functioning of society and protection of the environment, and that makes our work incredibly meaningful.”
“We exist to ensure that we can reduce and reuse our natural resources for a very long time. With these seven new assets in the Cleanaway network there is no limit to what we can achieve together in NSW.”
Follow the journey of the humble snap pea from farm to table and back again
Our Services - Resource Recovery
December 17, 2021
Highlights
“Rebuilding soils and making healthier food for people is going back to the old way of doing things. The circular economy existed hundreds of years ago. We are trying to head back to that.”
“Rebuilding soils and making healthier food for people is going back to the old way of doing things. The circular economy existed hundreds of years ago. We are trying to head back to that.”
Updated December 2022
When Lachlan cooks his favourite beef and vegetable stir fry dish each week, without realising it, he is a key participant in the ‘circular economy’ for food waste.
Among the ingredients in his signature dish are snap peas purchased from the Richies IGA Merbein supermarket in north-west Victoria.
The peas are grown on a farm in nearby Mildura in soil enriched with compost created from food waste collected by Cleanaway from the Sunraysia area.
Lachlan cuts off the ends of the peas and disposes of them in his Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) bin, one of thousands collected from homes like Lachlan’s in this region.
“Being a produce man, I am all about minimising waste and putting everything to use,” he says after learning that what he throws out is reused as part of closed loop.
“If it’s going to go back into the ground that grows my veges, I’m all for it.”
Cleanaway collects the 240 litre lidded FOGO bins with green lids from about 26,000 households in the Mildura Rural City Council area each week, supplementing the general waste and recycling bins.
Pictured: A Cleanaway truck collecting a FOGO bin in Mildura
The Council introduced the third kerbside bin to divert organic material from landfill, where it breaks down, creates greenhouse gas emissions, and contributes to climate change.
For the last two years Cleanaway has provided about 11,000 tonnes a year of food waste to Worm Tech, a company based about 300 kilometres west of Mildura at Carrathool in the Riverina region of NSW, which uses it to create high grade compost and worm castings.
“This is a real-life demonstration of the circular economy in action, and we are proud to play our role,” says Paul Timmis, Manager of Cleanaway’s Mildura branch.
“We see all waste as a resource and are sharply focussed on ensuring it is reduced, reused and recycled as we continue to pursue our mission of making a sustainable future possible.”
Pictured: Compost ‘wind rows’ at Worm Tech
Worm Tech shreds and decontaminates the FOGO before mixing it with other waste and laying it outside in ‘wind rows’ which are 350 metres long, 4.5 metres wide and two metres high to begin the six-to-eight week composting process.
“It’s a natural process but we enhance nature by adding water, monitoring the moisture and temperature, and turning it,” says Worm Tech Founder and Managing Director Adrian Raccanello.
“Rebuilding soils and making healthier food for people is going back to the old way of doing things. The circular economy existed hundreds of years ago. We are trying to head back to that.”
Worm Tech’s customers include farmers like Craig Crouch, a Director of Ausco Fresh Produce, which owns five farms covering 80 hectares at Mildura where he grows snap peas, snow peas and broccoli which are sold at the Melbourne and Sydney markets.
“I use a lot of their compost as pre-plant fertiliser for our veges. They build soil health and improve the biology of the soil. We used to use a lot of synthetic salt-based fertiliser but that’s detrimental to soil health,” says Craig, whose family has been farming in Mildura for 60 years.
“My farm practices have turned more to soil health these days. By adding organics to the system, it’s good for biology. That enhances the health of your soil and plants and can enhance the health of humans.”
Craig sells about five tonnes of produce each week in two 10-week cycles covering Spring and Autumn at the Melbourne Market. Among the purchasers of the snap peas is Rainfresh Victoria Pty Ltd, which buys on behalf some IGA supermarkets and fruit and vegetable stores, including Richies IGA Merbein. where Lachlan works.
Pictured: Fresh peas for sale at the Melbourne Market
“I buy snow peas and snap peas at the Melbourne Market. They go to our warehouse opposite the market where they are picked and packed for customers,” says Rainfresh buyer Darren Syres.
Lachlan estimates the supermarket receives about three to four kilograms of snow peas and six punnets of snap peas per week.
When he buys snap peas for his weekly stir fry, he is closing the loop on waste again.
Want to learn more about FOGO ahead of the nationwide rollout in 2030? Access our FOGO resources here.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
Epson turns a new page in its waste to resource efforts
Cleanaway’s partnership with Epson is a story that starts with damaged timber pallets and ends with a sustainable alternative to coal.
Our Services - Resource Recovery
December 14, 2021
Highlights
"By partnering with Cleanaway, we are now able to recycle the hundreds of wooden pallets at our Yennora warehouse. This is very much a win-win situation – a win for the environment and a win for Epson"
"By partnering with Cleanaway, we are now able to recycle the hundreds of wooden pallets at our Yennora warehouse. This is very much a win-win situation – a win for the environment and a win for Epson"
Epson’s Distribution Centre in Yennora had a problem that stretched all the way to the ceiling. Approximately 2,000 timber pallets were piling up in the warehouse and congesting the loading dock, and as a stopgap measure the pallets were headed straight to landfill via the general waste bin.
Pictured: Stockpile of damaged timber pallets at Epson’s Distribution Centre in Yennora.
Seeking a more feasible and sustainable solution, Epson registered for the NSW EPA Bin Trim Program through Cleanaway’s Centre for Sustainability in October 2020. The first Bin Trim assessment conducted later in the year shed light on an astonishing fact – an average of 100-150 broken and non-standardised timber pallets were being generated each week. This was equivalent to an annual estimate of 580 tonnes* of damaged and non-standardised timber pallets that could be diverted from landfill through a dry waste to energy service.
Through the NSW EPA Bin Trim Program, Cleanaway’s Centre for Sustainability partnered with Cleanaway ResourceCo to set up a 30m skip bin at the Yennora Distribution Centre as an on-call service. The skip bin accommodates around 100 pallets and helps Epson not only clear its stockpiled pallets but repurpose them into Processed Engineered Fuel (PEF) – a fuel source that is a sustainable alternative to coal – at Cleanaway ResourceCo’s Resource Recovery Facility (RRF) in Wetherill Park, NSW.
Pictured: Epson Yennora DC Warehouse Manager Aaron Christy assessing the timber pallets before loading them into the skip bin for Cleanaway ResourceCo.
“Epson was recently voted the number one sustainable company by Forbes Japan and we are constantly looking for ways to recycle, reuse and repair. By partnering with Cleanaway, we are now able to recycle the hundreds of wooden pallets at our Yennora warehouse. This is very much a win-win situation – a win for the environment and a win for Epson knowing these are no longer going to landfill,” said Epson Australia’s Human Resource & Environment Manager Garry Pearce.
Epson has plans to broaden their recycling initiatives and this includes developing new in-house technology. One such technology is Epson’s proprietary PaperLab – the world’s first in-office paper secure recycler.
“PaperLab technology breaks used paper down into microfibres, separates out the ink and then re-creates clean paper ready for use. This technology is groundbreaking as unlike traditional paper recyclers, Epson’s process doesn’t require huge volumes of water. The technology also has the potential to be used in packaging to create a sustainable alternative to polystyrene,” said Garry.
*Calculated by the NSW EPA Bin Trim Application’s conversion metrics including averages on material densities.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible together for communities and businesses across Australia or to ask about our timber waste disposal services in Sydney.
The LTS facility at Charles Street processes soils and muds which have been contaminated by substances including lead, coal tar and asbestos.
Cleanaway is playing a key role in an infrastructure boom which is driving building activity in Sydney and dealing with the legacy of the city’s industrial past.
The company’s Liquid and Technical Services (LTS) business is treating hazardous soils and drill muds excavated from transport projects such as light and heavy rail and motorways, and from property development projects.
The soils and muds, which have been contaminated by substances including lead, coal tar and asbestos, are processed at the LTS facility at Charles Street, St Marys to ensure they can be safely disposed of in landfill in accordance with NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) regulations.
Cleanaway purchased the facility through the takeover of hazardous waste specialist Toxfree Solutions in 2018 and has upgraded it with $5 million of investments including environmental controls such as an air extraction system, fully enclosed treatment and loading areas, rapid speed roller doors, wheel wash bays and a water treatment plant.
Pictured: The silo at Cleanaway’s fully enclosed hazardous soil treatment facility at Charles Street, St Marys in Sydney.
Kivin Rollinson, LTS Business Development Manager SME, said this is one of the major hazardous soil treatment facilities in NSW.
“We are a critical part of delivering the infrastructure pipeline of NSW. We only represent a small part of these projects but, without us, a lot of them wouldn’t be able to go ahead in the same time frame or with the same ease,” he said.
Soil volumes processed at the Charles Street facility are project related and vary year to year but have exceeded 30,000 tonnes per annum over the last four years.
One of the first major contracts for the facility was treating soil from the site of the former Millers Point gas works as part of the development of the Barangaroo urban development project on the edge of Sydney’s central business district.
The gas works, which produced ‘town gas’ from coal, were decommissioned in 1921 but tanks containing coal tar and contaminated soil remained under the site until the project began.
Pictured: The loading area inside Cleanaway’s fully enclosed hazardous soil treatment facility at Charles Street, St Marys in Sydney, where the soil is unloaded by trucks before being transferred to the treatment area. It shows the rapid speed roller doors and air extraction system.
Treatment work at the St Marys facility has continued with soil transported by truck from projects such as Parramatta Light Rail, Sydney Metro, M4 motorway widening, M5 motorway upgrade and other industrial redevelopments.
The soil is treated with reagents using a specialist mixing plant that has been approved by the NSW EPA so it can be disposed of in landfill.
NSW has more than 30,000 contaminated sites that were used for heavy industries such as gasworks or smelters, livestock dip sites, and storage areas for chemicals used in service stations or dry cleaners, according to the NSW EPA.
“It obviously shows there’s more work to be done. We are getting calls from customers all the time to process soil which if left untreated may pollute the environment and damage the water table beneath,” Kivin said.
“Our innovative remediation methods and technical expertise ensure we can meet customers’ and regulatory requirements and deliver on our mission of making a sustainable future possible.
“Our technical and environmental experts can work with customers to tailor solutions to their contaminated soil remediation problems and deliver the best environmental and commercial outcomes.”
Contact us to learn more about our tailored services for all types of waste streams.
Cleanaway trials theatre waste recycling program with Royal Perth Hospital
The Theatre Department at Royal Perth Hospital is on a mission to minimise waste with Cleanaway lending a helping hand
Our Services - Resource Recovery
November 26, 2021
Highlights
“The Theatre Department reached out to see what could be done to improve upon their current recycling practices. The biggest hurdle was to address the number of products used in the theatres and to determine how many of them could actually be recycled.”
“The Theatre Department reached out to see what could be done to improve upon their current recycling practices. The biggest hurdle was to address the number of products used in the theatres and to determine how many of them could actually be recycled.”
When consultant anaesthetist Everard Lee moved from New Zealand to Perth as part of his anaesthetic training, he was surprised to find that many products used in the operation theatres were not being recycled.
Seeing this as an opportunity to do more for the environment through his day to day work, Everard set out on his mission by forming a ‘green group’ within the theatre department of our customer, Royal Perth Hospital.
The group started by taking a closer look at the two volatile agents that are commonly used to put patients to sleep in the theatres – desflurane and sevoflurane. Everard knew that desflurane is 10-20 times more harmful to the environment than sevoflurane, and the mission to get this message out across to the wider team got underway. This quickly snowballed into a larger, more concerted effort involving all staff within the Theatre Department.
“We have a special bunch here at Royal Perth. Our ‘family’ is committed to recycling and happy to support each other. All I had to do was organise the energy and help everyone achieve a good outcome,” said Everard.
Everard’s colleague Jesus Reyes agreed that having the right information played a crucial part in their recycling journey.
“Once we had the education, we came up with a plan to delegate tasks across the entire Theatre Department. We wanted to get everybody involved and not just the anesthetists and nurses. Whenever new products came into the theatres, we took it upon ourselves to ask the suppliers if their products are recyclable,” said Jesus, who is A/Clinical Nurse Specialist – Perioperative at Royal Perth Hospital.
Pictured: Everard Lee (centre) and the theatre department’s ‘green group’ discussing the Environmental Impact Program with Cleanaway’s Key Account Manager Robert Bahemia (left).
The group’s next step was to get in touch with Cleanaway via Key Account Manager Robert Bahemia, who immediately set up a meeting. This was followed by an audit of the equipment used by the anesthetists so that a list detailing recyclable and non-recyclable materials could be created.
“The theatre department reached out to see what could be done to improve upon their current recycling practices. The biggest hurdle was to address the number of products used in the theatres and to determine how many of them could actually be recycled,” said Robert.
“Through the RPH Theatres Environmental Impact Program we were able to identify what the department could achieve. While we’re still in the infancy stages of the program, we’re already imagining what could be done across the hospital. Taking it further, we hope to see similar programs being rolled out in hospitals within the Perth metropolitan area.”
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia, and how we can help manage your clinical waste disposal.
Cleanaway provides non-destructive digging services to Essential Energy
Our Industrial and Waste Services (IWS) team offers a safe and efficient alternative to jackhammering and drilling
Our Services
November 4, 2021
Highlights
Our IWS team wasted no time in assisting the Essential Energy crew and external contractor support teams. The first item on the agenda: using NDD to remove an existing power pole.
Our IWS team wasted no time in assisting the Essential Energy crew and external contractor support teams. The first item on the agenda: using NDD to remove an existing power pole.
Cleanaway’s Industrial and Waste Services (IWS) team recently coordinated with client Essential Energy to provide non-destructive digging (NDD) services for a power supply upgrade project in Albury, NSW.
With a broad scope of work to fulfill and tight deadline to meet, our IWS team wasted no time in assisting the Essential Energy crew and external contractor support teams. The first item on the agenda: using NDD to remove an existing power pole – which was part of conductor upgrades – and installing a new pole.
Pictured: Cleanaway’s IWS team at the Essential Energy power supply upgrade project site in Albury, NSW
To complete the task, our IWS team had to demonstrate its local capacity by sourcing various equipment including three combo units. The team was also tasked with using NDD to locate and expose underground assets such as electrical cables, underground pipes and conduits – things that could potentially derail the entire project.
Other NDD applications include:
Potholing of gas, water, sewer and telecommunication lines
Excavating around gas, water, sewer and telecommunication lines
Straightening of power poles
Coring to obtain soil samples
The team was successful in providing on-time delivery of service to Essential Energy, while prioritising the health of project supervisors and operators with no breaches or incidents reported. The safety of the environment was safeguarded as well, with the drill mud from the project being disposed at an EPA-licensed facility.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
The Guide complements Cleanaway’s portfolio of education tools, including education videos and interactive Greenius online training modules.
Cleanaway is proud to have worked with Coles to develop a waste and recycling reference and training tool, to help Coles’ team members with the daily waste management process.
The Coles Waste & Recycling Guide supports the waste and recycling services provided to Coles, which has an ambition to be Australia’s most sustainable supermarket.
The one-stop reference document covers all waste services that Cleanaway provides to Coles as well as information about Coles’ waste diversion strategy and establishing efficient waste processes.
These services have recently been enhanced to include packaged organics waste services and new bins.
Each section of the Guide is dedicated to a waste stream across food, plastic, and cardboard and paper, with images and graphics for ease of reference as well as highlighting the layout of bins, stickers, posters and processes to ensure every stream is optimised and without contamination.
To help team members understand Coles’ waste management preferences, Coles’ waste hierarchy is included, highlighting partnerships with food rescue organisation SecondBite, bread waste collection program through Goodman Fielder, REDcycle soft plastic recycling program and its relationship with farmers.
This tool will act as a central source of information, where team members can find reliable and detailed information about waste and recycling services and processes.
The Guide forms a strong base for ongoing communication and education as Cleanaway helps Coles work towards its waste target of diverting 85% of waste from landfill by FY25 as part of its ‘Together to zero waste’ ambition.
The electronic document is quick and easy to update as the service offering is broadened in specialised diversion streams.
The Guide complements Cleanaway’s portfolio of education tools, including education videos and interactive Greenius online training modules.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for businesses and communities across Australia.
