Lord Howe Island is a microcosm of the problems facing Local Government authorities around Australia. Suitable landfills for solid waste disposal are increasingly difficult to locate, and wastewater is expensive to treat to environmentally acceptable standards.The Cooperative Research Centre for Waste Management and Pollution Control (CRC WMPC) assisted the procurement of an integrated waste management system for Lord Howe that is likely to have application in many mainland communities throughout Australia.
The CRC’s role was to provide, along with another consultant, expert advice on the development of novel solutions acceptable to the local community. The result of the program is that previous solid waste disposal methods, such as burning and landfill, have been minimized through a new emphasis on avoidance, reuse and recycling.
The strategy diverts green waste, paper, cardboard and food waste, including meat, to a Vertical Composting Unit that is producing unrestricted use quality compost. The unit is fully enclosed, weather proof, vermin proof, simple to operate and produces no leachate. Sewage sludge is handled in a biocycle treatment plant.
Lord Howe is but one example of the innovative solutions to waste management identified or developed by CRC WMPC.
The Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program, which commenced in 1991, is a Commonwealth Government initiative designed to bring together researchers in universities and government laboratories, with industry. CRC WMPC was one of the first group of 15 centres to be established.
Among the CRC’s members are public utilities and regulatory bodies as well as a number of industry partners, three universities and the CSIRO. The chairman of CRC WMPC is Ian Kiernan (Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World).
The Federal Government contributes about 25 percent of the CRC’s income and members work towards common specific research goals that lead to solutions with technology applications and perhaps commercialisation as products and services. While Local Government is not a direct member of the CRC, a large part of the Centre’s outputs have direct application to Councils.
Some of these outputs include the following.
- New wastewater treatment processes, one of which, known as UNIFED, can be retrofitted to remove nutrients from many Local Government waste water treatment plants (WWTPs).
- De-watering of sludges to very high solid levels (up to 50 percent).
- Engineered reed beds – now being operated as a private company.
- New process control systems for complex WWTPs.
The CRC has developed novel bio-digestion systems, currently under trial at a number of sites, that will accelerate landfill degradation and produce landfill gases for energy production. It has also applied Life Cycle Analysis to assess the total environmental impact of in-sink-erators, the location of sewage treatment plants, and a number of waste management strategies.
The involvement of New South Wales-based utilities such as the Department of Public Works and Services (DPWS) and the Department Land and Water Conservation (DLWC) provides the CRC with the opportunity to develop new technologies in a working environment. This in turn provides these utilities, and their Council clients, with an improved technology and operational base.
The CRC also helps members apply their expertise worldwide. The NSW DLWC’s water resources and total catchment management expertise has been identified by offshore interests as a niche area of expertise from Australia.
In this way Australian Local Government experience can be transferred into similar collaborative water resource type programs in South Korea, People’s Republic of China (Southern and Eastern) and Malaysia.
CRC WMPC is located at the University of New South Wales, and further information can be obtained by contacting the Executive Director, Dr David Garman, telephone (02) 9385 4886.
* Copy provided by CRC
