Best practice waste treatment
After two years of successful operation of its co-composting plant in Port Stephens NSW, EWT Bedminster has signed contracts for even larger plants in Perth with Southern Metropolitan Regional Council and Far North Queensland with Cairns City Council, Douglas and Mareeba Shires.
Southern Metropolitan Regional Council participants include Melville, Cockburn, Canning and Fremantle The Port Stephens Bedminster facility treats 100 tonnes per day of unsegregated municipal solid waste, sewage sludge and other organic materials. The Perth plant will treat 350 tonnes per day and the Cairns plant 300 tonnes.
Port Stephens Council is the only Council in NSW to have achieved the State Government guideline of 60% diversion from landfill. Its EWT Bedminster plant in combination with a split bin commingled recyclables collection has achieved up to 80% diversion. Council has been able to close its four landfills and no longer carries the long term liabilities and environmental concerns of having its garbage put in the ground.
Port Stephens now has a fully operational plant that guarantees treatment of all of the region’s garbage and a contract that allows it to totally understand the cost and liabilities of its waste management for 20 years. The price is adjusted only for CPI increases over the life of the contract, with the private sector, through EWT Bedminster taking all risks on the cost of operation of the plant.
The project is best practice in all respects providing an economically and environmentally sustainable solution to the region’s waste problems. The community has the garbage treated and recovered as a value resource, pollution and long term environmental damage is avoided as the garbage is not put in the ground to rot. Moreover, this has been achieved without the community having to find the capital funds, or predict future operational costs, as the private sector has accepted these risks. The contract had no cost impact on the ratepayers of the region.
The Perth contract is a Design-Build-Operate to the value of $34 million and a 12 month operating period before being handed over to the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council The Port Stephens and Far North Queensland facilities are Build-Own-Operate contracts with a 20 to 25 year operating period. These facilities are fully financed, owned and operated by EWT Bedminster and its subsidiaries. When complete, these facilities will treat unsorted waste from a population of more than half a million Australians.
The resulting resource is a valuable compost, for use in a variety of soil enhancement programs, and streams of ferrous, plastic and other materials for recycling. The plants are designed to divert up to 70% of material from landfill, with the Port Stephens Council actually achieving in excess of 80% diversion with the EWT Bedminster plant and other programs.
The residuals that do end up in landfill have been rendered inert, significantly reducing the environmental impact from the landfill. Importantly, the environment around the plants is protected from odours and long term damage associated with landfills.
Technology for gaining beneficial reuse of the residuals is under development with diversion levels set to increase even further. Treating of unsegregated municipal waste has been demonstrated to be technically achievable and commercially viable within these installations.
Although most Councils will undertake a form of kerbside recycling, the need for three and four collections is eliminated by the use of EWT Bedminster technology.
The economic saving from not having these multiple kerbside collections is significant, as is the benefits of having fewer truck movements within local residential communities. EWT Bedminster process is compatible with any level of kerbside recycling or single bin collections, allowing it to fit with Council’s long term strategies.
“We all feel virtuous because we sort some of the garbage through kerbside recycling,” said former Opposition Leader, John Hewson. “But more bins means more trucks each week…. Kerbside sorting gets the economics wrong…and results in the recycling of only 20 to 25% of household waste”.
The EWT Bedminster system takes and treats unsorted waste in a fully enclosed facility where all odours are captured and treated and all affected water is contained and consumed in the process. The waste is delivered to the plant and dumped directly onto an enclosed tip floor. Air is continuously drawn from the floor and pumped through a biological odour filter. The mixed waste is spread and larger items, such as car batteries, paint cans, computer cases, are removed. With these items removed, the waste is loaded into a digester and biosolids from the local sewage treatment plant are then added.
The digester continuously rotates with a forced air flow to create an aerobic biomass which converts all organic waste to compost. The process reaches temperatures of around 70oC from the heat generated by the bacteria. This destroys pathogens, allowing the compost to be used without restriction, providing soil benefits including replacement of chemical fertilisers and restoring organic matter levels. After three days in the digester the composting operation is complete. The digester is unloaded and the material screened to remove the larger indigestible solids, such as plastic bottles, with ferrous materials being magnetically removed for recycling.
The screened compost is loaded onto a maturation floor where it continues to be aerated for a period of 28 days. It undergoes a final screening to remove any remaining inorganic solids and is then ready for the desired end use.
At Port Stephens all the compost produced has found useful applications including landscaping at a local golf course, incorporation into commercial soil mix and as a soil conditioner on a tree plantation.
While waste to energy technologies are having difficulty overcoming the community and environmental objections to incineration of garbage, EWT Bedminster’s co-composting technology has reduced the dependence on landfill. It has also solved the long term problems of methane gas emissions, water table contamination and long haulage costs associated with the continued use of landfill for waste disposal.
This technology has attracted some significant players to EWT Bedminster’s share register, including AMP and ABN Amro. EWT Bedminster has assembled a highly competent management team, many of whom have impeccable credentials flowing from the Sydney Olympic Games. The Deputy Chairman of EWT Bedminster, Bob Leece, was the Deputy Director General of the Olympic Co-ordinating Authority and responsible for delivery of the Olympics infrastructure. Stuart McCreery, Senior Design Manager, worked on delivering Olympic facilities including the Bondi Beach Volleyball stadium, the Tennis Stadium at Homebush and the downtown Sydney venues. Rebecca Wark, EWT Bedminster’s Construction Manager, was responsible for the construction of more than $500 million of Olympic facilities including the new Showgrounds area and media village.
They join a highly credentialed team headed by CEO, Neil Turner, with three decades of experience in public infrastructure development and delivery and Technology Development Manager, Tony Kanak, with over 20 years of composting experience.
EWT Bedminster is pleased to see that many Local Governments throughout Australia are now recognising the need to lift their game and provide environmentally sustainable solutions to their waste problems. The Bedminster technology is uniquely placed to provide a sustainable solution to both the troublesome municipal solid waste stream and the problem of environmentally sustainable reuse of sewage sludge and other liquid biosolid wastes.
For further information contact Mark Forbes, General Manager Project Development at EWT Pty Ltd, telephone (02) 9902 4400, email bbamailbox@bedminster.com.au or visit www.bedminster.com.au.
* Copy provided by EWT Pty Ltd
