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Official Publication of the
ISSUE 72 | JUNE 2016
www.BEN-global.com/waste
INSIDE
22 Infrastructure risks and
challenges
28 WMAA releases manifesto
36 A win for paint
Kwinana WtE hits
speed bump
F. Scott Fitzgerald would be proud. The Impact Environmental team (and wasties who attended Waste 2016 – more on page 41) celebrated
two decades of Coffs conferences in style. L-R: Amanda Fletcher, Connie Button, Greg Freeman, Dawn Hallinan and Shannon Larkin.
Scrap metal woes: policymakers were warned
PP: 255003/07055
ISSN 1837-56 18
POLICYMAKERS were warned as early
as November last year that China was
willingly or inadvertently destroying the
market for steel and scrap metal, says
Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR)
CEO Grant Musgrove. He was commenting
on Arrium, one of two remaining steel
mills in Australia and the owner of the
Whyalla steelworks in SA, being placed
in administration in April.
Pointing to an ACOR report, which
not only forecasted a fall in scrap
metal prices but also proposed possible
government responses, Musgrove said
policymakers were “busy celebrating”
the China Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
coming into force in late December 2015
and had “studiously ignored” the report.
Now, Australia has found itself in a
predicament where the global oversupply
of scrap metal was a liability rather
than an asset and tens of thousands of
Australians were at risk of losing their jobs
because of either “gross mismanagement
of China as there were no end markets
and metals were just stockpiled” or “an
active economic warfare in advance of
the FTA to ensure China maintained its
position as the world’s factory”, which
included the use of mechanisms such as
protectionist policies and management
of the exchange rate.
“The entire time, Australia’s been
behaving like the only virgin in a brothel
since the GFC in 2008. Every major
economy is managing its currency either
directly or indirectly through quantitative
easing. Meanwhile, Australia is feeling
the rope burns,” Musgrove said.
“We are in a global currency and
trade war and simply pretending it’s
not happening.”
So what kind of response is now
needed from the federal government?
Thankfully, there are recommendations
readily available (they have been ready
since November):
1. Formal support for the use of
recycled steel in projects across all
tiers of government.
2. Elimination on taxes and levies on
residual waste generated during the
recycling process.
3. Offering freight subsidises to enable
delivery of recyclables to processing
facilities.
4. Enforcement
of
anti-dumping
regulations to protect the Australian
steel industry from dumped Chinese
steel.
5. Accelerated depreciation allowances
for
investment
in
recycling
infrastructure and equipment.
We can sort it out
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PHOENIX Energy has till June 30 – an
extension of its May deadline – to make
a final decision on its $380 million
Kwinana waste to energy project in
WA, after construction of the plant hit
a major speed bump in April.
The company confirmed that
construction firm Posco E&C had been
issued a notice of termination and
would no longer be part of the project.
It appears there were differences over
the extent of Posco’s planned use of
subcontractors.
The move has left Phoenix Energy
without a construction partner,
undoubtedly pushing back the plant’s
commissioning date. In 2013, Phoenix
Energy said it expected to commence
construction at the end of 2014 and
begin operation in late 2016.
In order to finance the project,
Phoenix needs to sign an engineering,
procurement and construction contract.
According to The West Australian,
Phoenix Energy requested an extension
after it failed to reach a deal with
Posco and an alternative contractor is
said to have entered the picture.
A Phoenix Energy spokesperson
told the newspaper the company was
“pleased and confident about its
progress on this exciting project for
Western Australia and looks forward
to making some announcements in the
not-too-distant future”.
The Rivers Regional Council signed
off on the contract to build the plant
in October last year.
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// Editor’s note
Official Publication
of the
There is no end to education
IT’S conference season once again, with
the Waste Management Association
of Australia (WMAA) kick starting
this year’s events with its inaugural
WasteNSW 2016.
Tackling natural disasters, presenters
focussed on a range of issues including
risk management and communication
as well as the opportunities for
successful post-disaster recycling.
Mark Rawson, managing director and
principal consultant at Rawtec revealed
that a 10,000 Average Recurrence
Interval earthquake in Adelaide would
generate 8.8 million tonnes of debris,
which is about twice the amount
of waste the entire state produces
annually, and SA’s infrastructure would
very quickly be overwhelmed if this
were to happen.
Of course, this is the worst case
scenario but Rawson told Inside Waste
on page 34 that even a large bushfire
would impact councils’ ability to
manage the waste that would come out
of it.
To provide better insight into the
gaps in SA’s disaster waste management
plan and infrastructure, Rawson and
his team undertook a disaster waste
scoping study and its findings as well
as recommendations could “morph into
something” for all of Australia if it had
national support.
Over in Coffs Harbour, some
575 wasties celebrated the 20th
anniversary of Impact Environmental’s
Waste conference in April.
MRA managing director Mike Ritchie
took the opportunity to provide
attendees with a 20-year review of
waste while discussions around NSW’s
proposed container deposit scheme
dominated the early hours of day one.
Weekly news updates at www.BEN-global.com/waste
Phil Carbins, Suez Sydney landfills
manager outlined the challenges
and risks to waste management
infrastructure, noting that while the
sector was doing a number of things
well, i.e the low-hanging fruit –
construction and demolition waste,
green waste and kerbside recycling, a
lot of waste still had to be managed
and “we’re now getting into the hard
stuff” which would take “more time,
more energy, more thinking, and more
technology...” all of which would come
at a higher price.
Carbins also posed the question
of whether the local government
procurement model was still the right
one to achieve the future goals of society
and waste managers. More on page 22.
One presentation that piqued our
interest was around energy from waste
and whether community’s expectations
and concerns had evolved.
A two-stage study involving residents
across the southern Sydney region
revealed findings that could very well
turn public consultations on its head.
For one, residents were more concerned
about how EfW plants worked and not
where they were sited. More on page 26.
We hope you enjoy the issue!
Editor: Jacqueline Ong
(jacqueline.ong@aspermont.com)
Advertising: Alastair Bryers
(alastair.bryers@aspermont.com)
Production Manager: Mata Henry
Senior Layout Designer:
Catherine Hogan
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(adproduction@aspermont.com)
Published by Aspermont Limited
Phone: (02) 9267 1166
Web: www.insidewaste.com.au
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and some advertisements in this publication
are subject to copyright and cannot be
reproduced in any form without the written
authorisation of the managing editor.
Offenders will be prosecuted.
www.BEN-global.com/waste
JUNE 2016 INSIDEWASTE
3
News //
Profile | Adam Faulkner
Adam Faulkner has 16 years of industry experience
and is currently the general manager of the Eastern
Waste Management Authority. He was also recently
elected as a board member under WMAA’s new peak
membership category.
What was your first job in the waste sector and how
did you get it?
Waste projects officer for Tweed Shire Council (NSW) – operational
management of waste and recycling infrastructure in one of Australia’s fastest
growing population corridors. How did I get it? Bluff mostly.
Favourite part of my job?
The ability to get stuff done. While my organisation has all the necessary
governance and process synonymous with a public sector entity, I enjoy
autonomy to deliver operational efficiencies, implement innovation, and improve
business practice that has benefited the six local government shareholders.
What is the strangest thing you’ve found?
While conducting an operational review of a (unnamed) landfill and resource
recovery park, I stumbled across an entry road to the weighbridge lined
with hundreds of children’s dolls. This was strange. Very strange, although
apparently only to me. Needless to say one of the recommendations (that didn’t
make the public report...) was to remove the dolls. Immediately.
How has waste management changed in your time in the industry?
The industry continues to mature, and while there are fewer unscrupulous
operators, there are still too many, which continues to dilute the competitive
advantage of those doing the right thing. I also think feedstock has become
far more fluid, and you can no longer solely rely on a strong professional
relationship. While the relationship is still important, the market now demands
safety, quality, innovation, and commercial value.
NSW CDS to feature depots
and RVMs
THE NSW government has announced
its preferred container deposit scheme,
picking a 10-cent initiative over the
beverage industry’s alternative Thirst
for Good model.
The scheme will apply to most drink
containers between 150ml and three
litres, much like the SA CDS. These
containers will also display NSW CDS
labelling.
Some of the scheme’s features
include:
• A 10-cent refund for anyone who
returns an eligible container;
• Collection depots ranging from largescale depots to standalone reverse
vending machines (RVMs) and popup sites; and
• Funding of the 10-cent refund as
well as the associated handling and
administration fees will be provided
by beverage suppliers.
The Association of Container
Deposit System Operators (CDSO),
whose members include Remondis and
RVM manufacturer Envirobank has,
unsurprisingly, welcomed the decision.
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“These providers and operators of
technologies and systems for container
deposit schemes stand ready to invest
in and deliver the necessary means to
operate a consumer convenient and
cost-efficient CDS,” CDSO executive
officer Robert Kelman said.
“CDSO and its members look
forward to assisting and engaging
directly with both government and
the beverage industry as they think
through maximising automation for
cost efficiencies.”
Total Environment Centre executive
director Jeff Angel also welcomed the
decision.
“With the right design features, we
expect a CDS will provide a $150 million
per annum boost to the recycling
sector, attracting over $160 million in
private sector investment to build 600
new recycling collection points across
the state,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Australian Council
of Recycling said it was identifying all
friction points given large structural
adjustments would be have to be made.
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News //
Profile | WMAA Career Centre
What were the key drivers that led to the launch
of the career centre?
WMAA has for many years advertised employment
opportunities. The creation of the jobs board was a
natural extension of the membership service to ensure
we continue to service the needs of the membership and
the industry.
What are the key aims of the centre?
The centre is designed to be a one-stop-shop for the waste and resource
industry to be a cost-effective solution to recruit staff but also for existing
industry participants to keep abreast of the latest employment opportunities.
What are the key benefits for jobseekers?
Access to a comprehensive jobs database in one place without the need to
wade through positions that are irrelevant to the job seeker.
And the benefits for employers?
Cost-effective recruitment while also getting access to hidden employment
talent via the resume bank.
What’s the progress to date?
It’s very early days in the life of the career centre. At the moment, we are
receiving between 190 and 500 unique visitors to the site each day. So there is
definitely a growing interest that employers should take advantage of.
More: www.jobsinwaste.com.au
Waste workers to get portable
long service leave
WASTE workers in the ACT will now
be eligible for portable long service
leave, bringing entitlements of workers
in this sector in line with those in
construction, contract cleaning, and
security.
Typically, an employee who has
completed 10 years of service in a
single company is entitled to long
service leave.
Waste workers however, tend to miss
out on this entitlement since most
council contracts last between five and
10 years.
The sector has long called for portable
long service leave to be factored in
contracts, where employees are able
to transfer their accrued entitlements
from employer to employer or contract
to contract.
After all, portable long service leave
is legislated and available to contract
workers in other sectors, including coal
mining, construction, and cleaning, so
why not waste?
The ACT has now taken the lead on
the issue, with its Legislative Assembly
voting to extend the Long Service
Leave (portable schemes) Act.
As part of the extension, waste
workers – garbage collectors and sorters
at nominated waste management
facilities – and those in aged care will
be awarded long service leave every
five years. The move will benefit close
to 6000 Canberrans.
The bill also includes provisions
allowing the Long Service Leave
Authority to make minor adjustments
to employer levies to meet the
prevailing economic circumstances of
covered sectors.
and Consumer Commission. Founded
in 2001, Perthwaste services the Perth
metropolitan area and WA’s southwest, and has a number of contracts
with local authorities to service a
population of 760,000 people. It has
two materials recycling facilities, an
organics composting facility, two
waste transfer stations, three depots
and a landfill. Perthwaste also has a
fleet of 68 trucks and is forecast to
generate revenues of more than $50
million in 2016.
Suez senior executive vice president
in charge of the industrial division
Marie-Ange Debon said the acquisition
would strengthen the company’s
position in a “promising market”.
“The activities of Perthwaste and
Suez form a very close fit. The united
strengths of the combined waste
management facilities, fleet, and
experienced people will speed up our
growth and business development in
this high-potential market,” Debon
said.
The Perthwaste acquisition is Suez’s
third since September 2015, when it
acquired Sembcorp’s minority stake in
its recycling and recovery activities.
“Promises of no forced amalgamations
were broken, the scheduled election
date for merged councils has now been
pushed back, and financial support for
mergers has been cut – so it’s past time
that the government lives up to its
commitments and do what it has told
the sector and community it would.”
Rhoades said the government
originally promised amalgamating
metropolitan councils up to $22.5
million to assist with the costs of
amalgamation – $10.5 million for each
newly merged council plus an extra $3
million for each additional 50,000 head
of population over 250,000.
That offer has now been cut by
more than 50% to a maximum of
$10 million.
Similarly, the original package
offered to merged regional councils
ranged between $5 million for a two
council amalgamation and $13.5
million for a four council merger – an
amount now reduced to a maximum of
$5 million, LGNSW said.
The list of new councils is available
at www.ben-global.com
Perthwaste managing director Kim Gorey and
Suez WA state general manager Nial Stock.
(Picture credit: Suez)
Suez acquires Perthwaste
SUEZ has continued to accelerate its
development in Australia, entering into
an agreement to acquire Perthwaste
just four months after announcing
its acquisition of Gold Coast-based
skip company Pro Skips. The company
will purchase Perthwaste for $87
million, subject to the approval of the
Australian Foreign Investment Review
Board and the Australian Competition
19 NSW councils merged; nine to go
THE NSW government has created 19
new councils across NSW while the
creation of a further nine councils is
pending.
Each new council will receive up
to $10 million to meet the costs of
merging and up to an additional $15
million to kick start new investment in
community infrastructure through the
Stronger Communities Fund.
Local Government NSW (LGNSW) was
not impressed that funding had been
cut and said the local government
sector would continue to hold the Baird
6
government and Minister Paul Toole
accountable for their commitments,
“despite a road littered with broken
promises”.
“We all know the reform process has
been one of ever-moving goal posts,”
LGNSW president Keith Rhoades said.
“Each time councils cleared a barrier
– whether it was to prove they were
financially fit for the future, to show
amalgamations
were
vehemently
opposed by their community, or to
submit their own merger proposals –
the requirements were hastily changed.
// News
Is Australia better off not
recycling glass?
THE glass recycling sector is in crisis,
according to delegates who attended
a Waste Contractors and Recyclers
Association of NSW (WCRA) forum in
April, with one presenter saying the
industry had found itself in a “vicious
circle with problems on every front”.
WCRA organised the glass recovery
forum following calls for further
discussion of the key issues that
were highlighted at a WCRA breakfast
briefing in March (more in the April
issue of Inside Waste).
Australian Bale Press managing
director Daniel Waddington told
delegates that the glass market
was in demise, revealing that glass
manufacturer O-I, which recently
closed its Penrith green glass furnace,
would use approximately 80,000 tonnes
of waste glass this year (equivalent
to about 94.1 million standard wine
bottles) but his company alone
produced some 50,000 tonnes of
materials annually.
The reduction in local bottle
manufacturing capacity was worrying
but this was exacerbated by limited
viable reuse alternatives available.
“It’s not sustainable to continue
running glass. If glass has to end up
in landfill, then the cost base needs to
shift,” Waddington said.
And was there any value in
continuing to recover glass?
Boomerang Alliance director Dave
West noted that 35% of glass recovered
could not be recycled and pointed to
the value of lost cardboard due to glass
contamination - $7.5 million worth of
cardboard is lost every year to recover
$2.5 million of glass - questioning if
NSW was better off not recycling glass.
Another issue was the way local
government contracts were set up. One
attendee said recyclers could no longer
“do a set and forget” type of contract,
what with factors including global
commodity prices, financial crises, etc
impacting the recycling sector.
Other issues raised included the
impact of stockpile limits and the
reduction in payment for sorted glass.
While there was discussion about
tweaking model council contracts
deemed inflexible by recyclers, with
the ultimate goal being shared
responsibility between all stakeholders,
many in the room acknowledged that
doing so would not help recyclers now.
It was also agreed that a moratorium
on the enforcement of the authorised
amount at recycling facilities would
provide flexibility and buy time for
recyclers but ultimately, this simply
delayed solving current challenges.
A number of delegates referenced
the metal recycling sector, saying
perhaps the government could offer
levy rebates to glass recyclers for their
glass fines as it did to metal recyclers
for their shredder floc.
Additionally, just as metal recyclers
were offered $5 million by the EPA to
come up with new ways to recover and
reuse shredder floc, the regulator could
provide funding for possible glass fines
recovery and reuse options.
There was also a call for governments
to start supporting alternative uses
for glass, either through legislation
or providing preference to glass in
procurement policies.
Meanwhile, West called NSW’s
current recycling data “fiction” and
said to keep the issue front and centre,
and to help local and state government
understand just how dire the situation
was, the industry needed to develop an
accurate dataset. It was thus agreed
at the forum that accurate datasets
collected by WCRA was a logical first
step forward.
WCRA and its members would also
engage with Roads and Maritime
Services (RMS), councils, ministers
and various associations on alternative
markets and reuse of recovered glass.
As funds were still available in the
NSW government’s Waste Less Recycle
More initiative, WCRA could engage
with the EPA to secure grants to
develop end markets and find solutions
to recover and reuse glass fines.
Finally, given O-I was NSW’s only
glass manufacturer, the industry
was encouraged to engage with the
company on its manufacturing capacity.
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8
RESOURCECO is seeking the right to use
its existing, fully licensed facilities in
SA to treat and dispose of contaminated
soils transported from Victoria.
Under current Victorian government
regulations, waste sent interstate must
be treated to a higher environmental
standard than the standard available
at any facility in the state where
the waste originated. The Victorian
EPA must also approve each waste
transported interstate.
ResourceCo has issued proceedings
in the High Court of Australia under
Section 92 of the Constitution and
is seeking to protect its rights as a
national company and those of its
clients trading across state borders.
Section 92 of the Australian
Constitution guarantees freedom of
trade between states and has long
been held to do so by the High Court.
ResourceCo
managing
director
Simon Brown said the company has
taken this step because it believes a
successful outcome is one that is both
environmentally sound and the most
economically viable option for its
customers.
“Our South Australian facility
complies with robust regulations as
governed by the local Environmental
Protection Authority and is consistent
with international best practice,”
Brown said.
“This case is about protecting the
rights of a national company and its
customers working in a national market
place.”
ResourceCo will argue before the
High Court that the current Victorian
regulation is “clearly in contravention
of section 92 of the Australian
Constitution.”
“We live in a federation and we
support all jurisdictions wanting to
ensure good environmental outcomes,
but we need national consistency,”
Brown said.
“For the waste industry to grow and
continue delivering good environmental
outcomes, we need the ability to invest
where it makes sense and ResourceCo
wants to operate as a truly national
company. To do that, we need to be
able to utilise our national network of
treatment and disposal facilities for
our customers.”
Brown said while ResourceCo
supported each state having the
ability to regulate the waste industry
as they see fit, this should not happen
at the expense of restricting a national
company’s ability to use its own fully
licenced facilities and operate across
state borders.
WMAA appoints new directors
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ResourceCo challenges Vic
regulation in High Court
THE Waste Management Association
Australia (WMAA) has welcomed three
new directors to its board under its
new peak membership category.
General manager of the Eastern
Waste Management Authority Adam
Faulkner has been elected by members
to fill the final, directly elected board
position.
Faulkner spent 10 years managing
waste and energy recovery services as
director of Tweed Shire Council before
moving to Hyder Consulting (now
Arcadis) to lead its Melbourne waste
and resource management unit.
Suez CEO Mark Venhoek and Remondis
CEO and managing director Luke Agati
were also appointed to the board.
Venhoek has been CEO of Suez since
October last year and was previously
vice president of the company’s waste
operations in China, where he also led
Suez’s operations across Hong Kong,
Macau, Taiwan, and South East Asia.
Meanwhile, in his role as managing
director and CEO of Remondis, Agati
has introduced the nationalisation and
expansion of the company’s services
and operations in Queensland, SA,
and WA.
Returning as vice president of WMAA
is Tony Kortegast, Tonkin and Taylor’s
managing director of international
operations.
Kortegast has more than 40 years
of experience in geotechnical, solid
waste, and heavy civil engineering
and has, throughout his career, worked
across a range of project inputs from
concept development to public and
consent processes, and detailed design
and construction management.
// News
Strategically important landfills will be unfairly treated
under safeguard mechanism
ESTABLISHING a reliable emissions
intensity benchmark for landfills
is simply not possible, says the
Australian Landfill Owners Association
(ALOA), and since the proposed
benchmarks will only impact a handful
of sites, these strategically important
landfills run the risk of being treated
unfairly.
ALOA was commenting on the
government’s safeguard mechanism
discussion paper released in April,
which details the process for setting
emissions
intensity
benchmarks
for facilities that are either new or
significantly expanded after 2020.
ALOA believes it is inappropriate for
the waste sector to be covered under
this mechanism.
ALOA CEO Max Spedding pointed
to the current National Greenhouse
and
Energy
Reporting
(NGER)
determination, which allows the
estimation of repeatable results
at a specific site and said it could
not address the variability of waste
composition,
landfill
placement
methods, and local climate conditions
that exist across Australia.
“As such, ALOA believes that the
establishment of a single emission
intensity benchmark may result in
some sites being unfairly assessed,”
Spedding wrote in his submission.
Moreover, since 22 million tonnes of
waste per annum are landfilled across
the country, the average landfill site
only receives about 35,000t of waste
a year, which is “much smaller than
the quantity required to be included
under the safeguard mechanism
threshold.”
As such, most landfills would not be
impacted by the mechanism. In fact,
ALOA said only three or four sites are
expected to exceed the 100,000t of
carbon dioxide equivalent emissions
threshold post-2020.
“With advances in landfill gas
collection and combustion, and the
diversion of organics from landfill, it is
unlikely that any of Australia’s landfills
are likely to exceed the safeguard
mechanism threshold until the mid2020s,” Spedding added.
“However, a small number of
strategically important landfills are
expected to exceed the threshold
due to their historic waste volumes
received and potential large volumes
to be received in the future.
“Thus, these essential waste
management facilities will be unfairly
treated compared with smaller landfills
that do not exceed the threshold. As
such, ALOA believes other drivers
that impact all landfills should be
introduced to reduce emissions from
the waste sector.”
A better method, according to
Spedding, would be to enforce current
regulations as well as organic diversion
programs, all of which offered a more
reliable incentive for landfills to reduce
emissions.
He noted that over the last 25
years, the sector has “successfully
demonstrated” that it could reduce
its emissions, a trend that he said is
continuing today with the expansion of
landfill gas collection and destruction
at smaller sites as well as greater
organic diversion from landfills.
Additionally, Spedding pointed
to further harmonisation of landfill
regulations and the continuation of
incentives, such as the Emissions
Reduction Fund, as ways to further
drive emissions down over the next five
to 15 years.
“Landfill owners have responded
promptly to changes in their sector
and all indicators suggest that this
Max Spedding
will continue into the next decade,”
Spedding said.
“This will be achieved by installing
new gas collection infrastructure at
smaller landfills and diverting more
organic waste to composting facilities.
“As such, ALOA strongly believes
that the waste sector must be removed
from coverage under the safeguard
mechanism,” Spedding concluded.
Why the circular economy has struggled to gain broader attraction
THE circular economy concept simply
and eloquently describes the ideal
system for sustainable material use
from waste management, says NSW EPA
director of waste and resource recovery
Steve Beaman, but it’s time to reflect
on why it has struggled to gain broader
attraction across the economy.
Speaking at Waste 2016 in April,
Beaman pointed to three reasons why
Steve Beaman
the circular economy concept, while an
easy idea to sell to decision makers,
was challenging to put into practice.
“Firstly, materials don’t move in a
linear and predictable flow like the
classic diagram would have you to
believe,” Beaman said.
“There are often many leakages in the
system where the final use may be in
in another country, another state, and
of different environmental and product
quality standards. Unfortunately, we
do make materials that have limited
ability to be returned to the productive
economy; asbestos and CCA (copper
chrome arsenic) treated timber being
the obvious examples.
“Secondly, the model works well
when commodity prices are high. High
commodity prices provide the financial
fuel to drive the material back to the
production cycle and without this
financial driver, the cycle stops.”
However, commodity prices are not
what they used to be and falling iron
ore and oil prices, to name a few, have
had a significant downstream impact
on plastic and metal recycling.
“The model also relies on each person
in the system taking a small clip on the
way through to make the system work.
This gets more problematic as gate and
commodity prices are starting to fall,”
Beaman added.
Another reason can be clearly seen
in the latest figures released by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Last month, the ABS released a
report stating that waste generation
had increased by 163% between 199697 and 2013-14.
Meanwhile, water consumption over
that period had fallen by 16% and
greenhouse gas emissions, despite
growing 20%, had dropped since they
peaked in 2007-08.
“There is something that is
fundamentally out of place in a system
that has seen such a dramatic rise
in waste generation and we need to
better understand what’s driving this
pattern,” Beaman said.
“It is time to rethink our approaches
and recognise that some of the key
fundamentals, like commodity pricing,
have shifted. I believe it is now time to
realign our thinking.
“Given our waste and resource
recovery systems are complex and can
be greatly impacted by external forces,
be they economic or social, at the EPA,
we’re thinking carefully about what
this all means for waste policy over the
next five to 10 years. What are the next
building blocks that we need to put in
place to build on the successes of Waste
Less Recycle More (WLRM) and build a
more resilient [waste] ecosystem that
can withstand the shocks a little bit
better?”
Beaman also posed a number of
questions for discussion, including how
the sector should collect, recover, and
transport materials, what the future
of kerbside recycling, mixed waste
processing, and energy from waste
looked like, and whether there were
opportunities to introduce new ideas
such as reverse logistics.
Another potential opportunity to
consider, he said, was whether there
was value in investing in further
downstream processing as opposed to
relying on volatile export markets.
“Understanding this context is
important to make sure that future
policy, funding, and regulatory settings
make the most of any opportunities
that arise,” he said.
For now, the EPA is considering
feedback from the industry as it enters
the homestretch of delivering on its
WLRM commitments.
9
News //
about multiple trucks entering and
leaving the site over a period of “a few
months”.
On May 10, up to 40 officers from
the EPA accompanied by NSW Police
inspected the property and the latter
also executed a search warrant and
collected evidence on the same day
at one of the suspected sources of the
waste from a waste yard in western
Sydney.
“Officers
collected
evidence
including taking a number of waste
samples to help determine what has
been dumped and our investigations are
now focussing on the size, consistency,
and origin of the dumped materials,”
the EPA said in a statement.
“These investigations are ongoing
and may lead to regulatory action so
we cannot say any more at this stage.”
84MW Australian landfill gas business
which it has been operating for more
than 25 years.
Further, the company has taken a
final investment decision to build,
own and operate a new 5MW landfill
gas fuelled generation facility at
the Brown County tip in Ohio, USA,
following the signing of a 15-year
agreement with Rumpke Waste that
provides Duet with exclusive access
to gas from the landfill until 2040.
It is Duet’s first project with Rumpke,
one of the largest privately owned
residential and commercial waste and
recycling firms in the US and positions
the company to potentially deploy
additional capacity at other Rumpkeowned landfill sites.
Commencement of power station
operations is targeted for the end of
2017.
Alleged illegal dumpsite uncovered
A RURAL property in Spencer on the
Central Coast and a Western Sydney
waste operator are embroiled in an
ongoing NSW EPA investigation into an
alleged illegal dumping operation.
The EPA confirmed that it is
investigating the alleged dumpsite
after a tip-off from the community
Duet builds landfill business
DUET Group’s Energy Development
business unit has pushed the button on
two growth opportunities – snapping
up Western Australia-based Landfill Gas
and Power and approving a new landfill
gas project in the US.
LGP operates two power generating
landfill sites including the fivemegawatt Tamala Park facility north of
Perth, the 4MW Red Hill plant east of
Perth (4MW), and a 1MW diesel peaking
station in Kalamunda, south of Perth.
The deal is expected to settle next
month.
Tamala Park and Red Hill are
underpinned by long-dated landfill gas
agreements with Mindarie Regional
Council and the Eastern Metropolitan
Regional Council that provide exclusive
rights to access gas.
Energy Developments said the
acquisition was a bolt-on to its existing
Vic posts healthy surplus but how much allocated to waste?
THE Victorian government released its
budget in April, posting a $1.9 billion
surplus for 2015-16 and forecasting a
$2.9 billion surplus in 2016-17.
But just how much has been
allocated to the waste and resource
recovery sector?
There are concerns about what is
being done with the $300 million
to $500 million (the amount varies
depending on who you ask) in collected
landfill levies that are currently sitting
unspent in the state’s Sustainability
Fund. Waste Industry Alliance’s Tim
Piper has long called for the funds to
be returned to industry and used in
areas such as education, developing
end markets for recycled products
and assisting commercial ventures, as
opposed to using them as a buffer for
the budget.
Meanwhile, Australian Council of
Recycling CEO Grant Musgrove said
the funds should be used to support
the entire supply-value chain, provide
incentives to businesses, industries,
and councils to upgrade/expand
existing recycling infrastructure and
drive landfill diversion.
If we take the higher end of the
amount of collected levy funds – $500
million – this means the waste sector
has contributed some 26% to the
state’s 2015-16 surplus.
However, it has been revealed that
only $21 million will be allocated to
the industry over four years to “create
jobs and drive innovation” in the
sector.
With a number of initiatives in
the pipeline, from meeting the
objectives in the Statewide Waste
and Resource Recovery Infrastructure
plan to overhauling regional waste
infrastructure to implementing its
e-waste to landfill ban, perhaps more
should have been allocated to the
sector in the budget.
The pilot plant is expected to be
operational later this year and within
the next three years, aims to have
produced one million litres of fuel for
use in field trials by the US navy as part
of its Great Green Fleet initiative, and
also by the Australian Navy.
Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia
have also announced a partnership to
investigate options for locally produced
aviation biofuel.
“This announcement, along with the
3% biofuel mandate that applies from
next January, illustrates how biofuels
are going to figure more prominently
in the fuel supply chains of the future,”
Bailey said.
The advanced biofuels pilot plant
Biomass material such as sugarcane bagasse
will be used as feedstock in the new biofuels
plant. (Picture credit: Wiki Commons)
$16M biofuels plant announced
A $16 million advanced biofuels plant
will be built at Southern Oil Refining’s
plant in central Queensland, marking
a big step forward in the state’s push
to develop a large-scale biofuels
industry.
If successful, the Northern Oil
Advanced Biofuels Pilot Plant will
be expanded to a large, $150 million
commercial-scale refinery, which would
produce 200 million litres of advanced
biofuel annually, suitable for military,
marine, and aviation use.
Joining State Development Minister
Dr Anthony Lynham and Biofuels
Minister Mark Bailey in Gladstone to
make the announcement, Premier Anna
Palaszczuk said it would be Australia’s
10
first
commercial-scale
advanced
biofuels production facility.
“A fully-fledged biofuels industry has
the potential to play a key role in our
economic future, and this pilot plant
is a giant step towards achieving that
goal,” she said.
“This pilot plant is essentially the
launch site for a Queensland biofuels
industry. If we can develop this plant
into a large-scale refinery, that’ll mean
jobs here in Gladstone, but it could
also kick off a new wave of investment
and job creation across Queensland.
“And with the government’s help, we
have managed to get this investment out
of New South Wales and into Queensland
– something I’m keen to see more of.”
will be co-located with the Yarwun rerefining facility and will use biomass
material such as sugarcane bagasse and
possibly prickly acacia as feedstock for
the production of bio crude oil, which
will then be distilled into saleable
kerosene and diesel products.
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Rationalisation of landfills is progressing, particularly on the Gold Coast.
(Picture credit: xiquinhosilva, Flickr CC)
Informing infrastructure
investment decisions in Qld
THE Queensland government has for
the first time attempted to determine
the state’s waste collection and
infrastructure capacity. And it now has
a preliminary infrastructure snapshot
that will serve to inform infrastructure
investment and policy decisions.
The Queensland Department of
Environment and Heritage Protection’s
(EHP) waste infrastructure project is
the first step in meeting the objectives
of the government’s 10-year Waste
Avoidance and Resource Productivity
Strategy.
In mid-2015, the government
commissioned Arcadis to embark on
the two-stage project to determine
the constraints, opportunities and
challenges across the state through
a range of stakeholder workshops and
consultations.
In stage one, Arcadis was tasked
with identifying and describing
existing waste and resource recovery
infrastructure as well as issues and
constraints holding industry back
from developing new and better
infrastructure.
In stage two, Arcadis will take an indepth look at local issues and solutions
for regional Queensland.
“In stage two, we will be delving a
little deeper in three selected regions
to develop regional plans. We will
be looking at waste precincts and
opportunities for regionalising and
rationalising infrastructure,” Arcadis
team leader, waste advisory team
Dominic Schliebs told delegates who
attended Waste 2016 in April.
The final infrastructure report is due
in mid-2016 and regional plans will be
delivered at the end of the year.
The types of infrastructure considered
included collection, transfer, recovery,
reprocessing, organics processing and
disposal.
Infrastructure snapshot
While the data is still being refined and
finalised, Arcadis provided delegates
with a snapshot of the state’s waste
infrastructure.
When it came to landfills, there were
some 220 sites identified as open and
staying open. One of the surprising
things that came out of the project,
Schliebs said, was that there were
67 landfills that were either already
closed, closing soon or converting to a
transfer station.
Schliebs said at least 15 operators
were planning expansions while six
were planning to develop new sites.
While there were still “many”
small unlined and/or unmanned rural
tips, rationalisation of landfills by
councils was progressing, Schliebs
said, highlighting the Gold Coast and
Toowoomba as positive examples.
Queensland currently has 272
transfer stations of which 31 were
privately owned while there were 15
MRFs across the state and Schliebs
noted that the “smalls ones were
struggling to remain viable”.
There was one alternative waste
treatment facility in Cairns and one
major energy from waste plant on the
Gold Coast for green and wood waste.
In terms of organics, Queensland
was home to 65 private sector organic
processors that processed around 1.45
million tonnes of waste while councils
were separating half a million tonnes
of green waste.
The project also identified 14 specific
construction and demolition recyclers
processing 860,000 tonnes per annum.
C&D waste may be the cheapest
stream to recover but Queensland’s
recovery rate was only 55%. Schliebs
said this was due to the fact that in
many regions, it was still cheaper to
landfill than recover.
There was also an abundance of inert
landfills run by smaller players and the
barriers to entry for these sites were
lower.
Recycling by councils was also
limited because while many were
crushing concrete, “very few” were
developing external markets.
Meanwhile, Queensland had a 41%
recovery rate for commercial waste,
largely made up of industrial and
agricultural organics.
Valuable materials and availability of
cheaper processing options, as well as
corporate sustainability policies drove
recycling. However, it was still generally
cheaper to landfill commercial waste.
Three MRFs were identified in south
east Queensland as focussed on C&I
recyclables.
More on www.ben-global.com
13
News //
Strengthen Vic EPA; improve funding model: MAC
STRENGTHENING the Victorian EPA’s
governance structure and improving
the regulator’s funding model are
among the 48 recommendations put
forward by the Ministerial Advisory
Committee (MAC).
In May 2015, Minister for
Environment Lisa Neville appointed
the MAC to undertake an independent
inquiry into the EPA, examining its
role, powers, governance and funding,
and tools.
The 48 recommendations relate to:
• A strengthened EPA governance
structure to make the regulator an
independent statutory authority
with a seven-member board and a
Science, Engineering and Health
subcommittee;
• An
improved
funding
model
(more below) to provide greater
revenue certainty and stability, and
development of a business case for
increased resources for the EPA;
• An overhaul of the Environment
Protection Act 1970, including a
general preventative duty to protect
the Victorian environment that will
strengthen prevention and minimise
harm from waste and pollution;
• Development of a prosecution
strategy for the EPA and a broader
and stronger range of penalties and
sanctions;
• A requirement for the EPA to be
involved early in strategic planning
processes and the development of
strengthened land use planning
mechanisms to better manage and
address conflicting land uses; and
• Establishment of a new state
wide network of local government
environment protection officers to
address localised pollution and waste
complaints, appropriately authorised
under the Environment Protection
Act 1970.
Needless to say, for the EPA to have
the necessary capabilities, it needs to
be appropriately funded.
At present, the EPA’s funding mix
includes revenues from the landfill levy
and while the levy may be a legitimate
alternative to general tax revenues as a
source of funding, the MAC said these
levies were failing in their primary
regulatory objective of reducing waste
to landfill.
The committee put forward five
funding options:
• Continue
to
receive
annual
distributions from the municipal and
industrial landfill levy;
• Retain revenues from regulatory fees
and user charges that are currently
paid into the Consolidated Fund;
• No longer retain the prescribed
industrial waste levy revenues, which
should be directed instead into the
Consolidated Fund;
• Receive additional disbursements from
the municipal and industrial landfill
levy to replace the market linked
investment income replacement grants
from the Department of Environment,
Land, Water and Planning; and
• Receive
an
annual
budget
appropriation that replaces litter
revenue, which should instead be
paid into the Consolidated Fund.
ERF has arrived at a price trough: RepuTex
FARMERS and land-use schemes were
the biggest winners in the federal
government’s third Emissions Reduction
Fund (ERF) auction held in April.
The
Clean
Energy
Regulator
contracted 50.47 million credits at
an average price of $10.23 for a total
value of $516 million.
The average price has fallen by about
$2 from $12.25 in auction two, which
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carbon and energy analysts RepuTex
said was due to anticipated “megaproject” volumes, i.e. Terra Carbon’s
joint project with the Queensland
government, dragging the price down.
This particular project would supply
15 million credits (30% of all credits
purchased by the regulator), alongside
the 10 largest projects, which would
supply more than 75% of all ACCUs
contracted.
While $10.23 marks the bottom for
ERF contract prices, RepuTex said it
was likely that little abatement would
be offered at prices sub-$10 in the next
auction.
“Subsequently, depending on the
emergence of more mega projects, we
believe that there are prospects for a
notable price rise at the next auction,”
RepuTex said.
In fact, RepuTex’s analysis showed
that majority of proponents secured
contracts “well above” the average
price, with contracts entered into over
a wide spread of prices.
“This suggests the regulator
continues to have an appetite for
higher contract prices,” RepuTex said.
“Moreover, the wide spread of prices
– and the role of just one project
heavily influencing the average price
– reinforces the average price of
ACCU contracts is a poor measure of
abatement value, and is largely utilised
by the regulator to deflate bidding.
“At an average price of $10.23, we
believe the ERF may now have arrived
at a price trough, with little abatement
likely to be offered at prices lower to
this at the next auction. Notably, the
lower number of contracts awarded (73
contracts, down from 144 at auction one
and 129 at auction two) suggests that
many of the early project developers
remain on the sidelines of the ERF,
with current prices not high enough to
incentivise their participation.”
Two thirds of the $2.55 billion
ERF funding has now been allocated,
meaning it is likely that there will
be one more complete auction in
November this year before the first
funding tranche is depleted.
“Potential remains for a fifth auction
to be held in early 2017, however, we
currently view this as a run-off event,
with available funding likely to be far
smaller than earlier auctions,” RepuTex
said.
Farmers are among the biggest
winners in the third ERF auction.
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News //
Lismore tests organic processing plant
LISMORE is testing its new compost
pad aeration system as part of the
council’s $700,000 expansion of its
organics processing facility.
The facility, at the Lismore Recycling
and Recovery Centre in north eastern
NSW, will be capable of processing
25,000 tonnes of food and garden
waste annually. It will be trialled and
tested for up to three months before
operations commence. The expansion
of the organics processing facility will
also allow council to process waste for
neighbouring councils.
“This new system will halve
composting time and ensure a more
consistent product,” Lismore City
Council’s waste operations coordinator
Kevin Trustum said.
“We already have good demand for
our compost from local farmers and
organic producers, and this will enable
us to provide an even better product
to the market, which has grown
considerably since we received organic
certification in 2014.”
Provided by Australian Native
Landscapes, the Aero-Sorb compost
system aerates the compost through
a system of pipes underneath the
compost piles, reducing the need to
turn them.
This will halve the existing 16 to 20week composting process and reduce
fuel costs as well as save on electricity
and water usage.
The expanded organics processing
facility will also house a new bagging
unit to better meet the needs of urban
backyard gardeners. The machine will
enable council to sell small bags of
compost to the many local residents
who visit the Lismore Recycling and
Recovery Centre but do not want large
quantities of compost.
The new organics processing facility
is expected to commence operations by
the end of July.
The EPA said the minimum standards
are a mix of design and construction
techniques, effective site operations,
monitoring and reporting protocols, and
post-closure management requirements.
The regulator noted that the
guidelines do not introduce any new
approvals or licensing processes and
will assist operators with approvals
and compliance by providing additional
technical information, particularly for
emerging techniques and technologies,
and clarifying the EPA’s requirements.
The guidelines also incorporate more
information on proven alternative
techniques and technologies that may
reduce the cost burden on operators in
appropriate circumstances.
Finally, the guidelines include refined
Construction Quality Assurance (CQA)
requirements developed by GHD. These
provide the necessary assurances that
construction methods and materials
are satisfactory based on reasonable
testing and assessment requirements.
More on page 31
Revised guidelines for NSW landfills
THE NSW EPA has updated its landfill
guidelines, which now recognise
modern landfill techniques and
combine requirements for general solid
waste and restricted solid waste.
The EPA will use these guidelines to
assess landfill licence applications and
set conditions for new or varied landfill
licenses under the Protection of the
Environment Operations Act. It is not
proposed that the new requirements
be applied retrospectively to existing
landfill cells that are operating well.
16
The regulator will also use the
guidelines to assess issues that arise
during the operational and post-closure
period of landfills.
As part of the changes, the EPA
has removed “primary environmental
goals”, “related environmental goals”
and “benchmark techniques” from
the guidelines, replacing them with a
series of “minimum standards” which
are essentially the consolidated and
refined goals and benchmarks from the
previous edition.
// News
Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal axed
LEGISLATION to abolish the Road
Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT)
has passed the Senate. After two hours
of debate, the bill was passed 36 to
32 with support of the crossbench
except for Ricky Muir from the Motoring
Enthusiast party.
The bill was slipped into the April
parliamentary agenda at the request of
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Senator
Jacqui
Lambie
who
supported the axing, told ABC’s RN
Drive program prior to the vote that if
the RSRT was abolished, the role of the
National Heavy Regulator’s role should
be expanded, and funding as well as
staff passed to the body.
The RSRT was set up in 2012 and
its value, according to the Transport
Workers Union (TWU), was to hold
major companies accountable to what
happens in their transport supply
chains by providing contracts that
ensured safe minimum rates for drivers.
“The opposition to the tribunal from
the federal government is cynical but
not surprising. The Liberal National
Party’s major financial donors are
among these major companies, which
will ultimately be held to account for
minimum safe rates,” TWU national
secretary Tony Sheldon said in a
statement.
“Evidence that the government
is playing politics on this issue of
public safety is clear since its own
reports released earlier this month
show safety in road transport has the
“highest fatality rates of any industry
in Australia” with 12 times the average
for all industries. They also show that
rulings from this tribunal will reduce
truck crashes by 28%.
“This tribunal will help change the
transport industry for the better –
by ensuring transport operators and
owner-drivers are not squeezed by lowcost deadly contracts, putting them
out of business and placing lives at
risk. Those with a real interest in the
viability of the transport industry and
safety on our roads should back it.”
Early last year, the RSRT announced
that it would begin an inquiry into the
waste industry as part of its third annual
work program. To date, the inquiry has
received 15 written submissions, heard
oral submissions, and visited operations
across the sector. Factors that have
affected safety and fairness in the
sector, according to the submissions,
include collection of waste in densely
populated areas, mandated start times,
and treatment of workers upon transfer
of contracts.
“Drivers from the cash delivery
sector, ports, delivery of fuel, waste,
retail and manufacturers will lose
out if the tribunal is abolished, with
investigations ongoing in these
sectors,” Sheldon said.
However, Ai Group welcomed the
abolition of the RSRT.
“The Senate’s decision to abolish
the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal
is very welcome. Ai Group is opposed
to the establishment of the tribunal,
and ever since, we have called for its
abolition,” Ai Group chief executive
Innes Willox said.
“The tribunal should never have been
established in the first place. It was
set up in response to a TWU industrial
campaign. The idea that paying drivers
more or differently will improve road
safety has been rightly rejected by
Parliament.”
Microbeads,
batteries
on product
stewardship
priority list
MICROBEADS and batteries are
among the highest priorities for
consideration for potential product
stewardship approaches in 2016-17.
As with previous years, federal
Minister for Environment Greg
Hunt has listed five classes of
products
to
consider
during
2016-17, whether some form of
accreditation or regulation under
the Product Stewardship Act might
be appropriate.
These products include plastic
microbeads, batteries, photovoltaic
systems, electrical and electronic
products, and plastic oil containers.
Waste architectural and decorative
paint was not included in the list due
to the commencement of Paintback
last month (more on page 36).
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17
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The Rotochopper MP2 will be
launched at AWRE in August.
// Equipment news
Greenstar introduces new
Rotochopper range
GREENSTAR Equipment, the authorised
dealer for Rotochopper in Australia and
New Zealand, has introduced a new
range of Rotochopper horizontal wood
grinders, wood chip processors, and
bagging systems.
Rotochopper specialises in grinding
equipment that converts wood
waste into products like coloured
landscape mulch, biomass fuel, animal
bedding, and compost. For recycling
companies, no market has consistently
demonstrated the growth potential
and economic strength as the premium
landscape mulch market, Greenstar said.
Rotochopper offers exclusive grind-
Wastech continues to innovate
with new Quad-Quad Road Train
A MORE cost-effective, time saving
Ejection Blade Trailer is now available
thanks to the newly launched
Quad-Quad Road Train Combination
developed by Wastech Engineering.
Wastech Engineering, in partnership
with waste management and recycling
company Cleanaway and WA-based
heavy transport company KTrans,
has developed the first Quad-Quad
Ejection Blade Road Train as a result
of continued research and development
into ways to further reduce the costs
per tonne in waste transportation.
Now delivered and operating in WA,
the Quad-Quad Road Train features a
lift up front axle and steerable rear
axle to help improve road handling and
tyre wear.
Overall vehicle length is within
32m with a body volume of 65m3 per
trailer. The overall combination has a
94.5-tonne GCM and is able to achieve
up to 54-tonne payload with a loading
time of only 20 minutes per trailer.
Cleanaway replaced its existing topload transfer vehicle configurations and
as a result, has significantly improved
transport efficiency, reducing the total
annual trips required by nearly half.
The fully enclosed compaction trailers
achieve consistent load density and
improved odour and litter management.
Development of the Quad-Quad Road
train runs in line with the PerformanceBased Standards (PBS) scheme. It
has been designed and tested to be
optimised in performance, productivity,
Volvo launches H Series
wheel loaders
VOLVO'S H Series wheel loaders have
landed on our shores and they are
equipped with Volvo's OptiShift
technology to eliminate power losses
in the torque converter and reduce fuel
consumption by up to 18%.
Combined with Volvo CE’s patented
Reverse By Braking (RBB) technology,
OptiShift boosts productivity and
efficiency in all applications. RBB is
ideal for short cycle or truck loading
applications. It senses the loader’s
direction and slows the machine
by applying the service brakes
automatically, increasing fuel efficiency,
improving operator comfort and
increasing machine lifetime.
Volvo’s load-sensing hydraulics and a
robust Tier 3/ Stage IIIA Volvo engine
supply power to the hydraulic functions
according to demand to boost efficiency
and-colour technology that simplifies
coloured mulch production. A single
Rotochopper grinder can transform raw
wood waste into vibrant mulch with
the particle size, texture, and colour
that consumers demand. Each grinder
in the Rotochopper line-up is designed
with “Perfect In One Pass” technology
for producing high quality end products
at the lowest possible costs.
The Rotochopper range starts with
the MP2, designed specifically to allow
tree care professionals to capitalise on
the growing landscape mulch market by
simultaneously grinding and colouring
in a single step. Featuring an on-board
coloriser, the MP2 can be towed with a
heavy-duty truck and sets up in minutes.
The largest diesel grinders in the
line-up, the, B-66, FP-66, and MC266,
are available with crawler tracks and a
transport dolly to minimise handling
and transportation costs. A grinder
with crawler tracks and transport dolly
effortlessly switches from highway
transport on tyres to worksite navigation
on crawler tracks. The transport dolly
eliminates the need for a low bed trailer
and slashes the time and costs required
to prepare large tracked machines
for highway transport by way of low
loaders. The Rotochopper MP2 will be
launched at the Australasian Waste and
Recycling Expo (AWRE) in Sydney on
August 10 and 11.
For more information, visit
www.greenstarequip.com.au or
call 1300 552 301.
and safety in line with its primary
tasks. The system has been developed
to challenge conventional methods of
waste transport, focusing on reducing
transport cost to landfill by maximising
payload which in turn significantly
reduces R&M on equipment and
associated carbon footprint.
www.wastech.com.au or call
1800 465 465.
Cleanaway has replaced its top-load
transfer vehicle configurations with the
Quad-Quad Road Train.
Aerial Data: An innovative approach to Landill Management
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Airspace: 358727m3
The L150H is one of
three in Volvo's new
series of wheel loaders.
and lower fuel consumption. The system
ensures a fast response for shorter cycle
times while delivering smooth operation
through superior control of both the
load and the attachment.
The L150H, L180H and L220H are also
equipped with all-Volvo powertrains
and feature the unique Torque Parallel
linkage that delivers high breakout
force and parallel linkage.
An optional Boom Suspension
System is available if you're looking to
boost productivity by up to 20%.
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19
news
Waste Management Association of Australia: Suite 4.08 | 10 Century Circuit | Baulkham Hills NSW 2135 | t: 02 8746 5000 | e: info@wmaa.asn.au | w: www.wmaa.asn.au
From the CEO’s desk
It’s been a contrasting few weeks for the waste and resource
recovery industry. We have seen the best and worst of what it
has to offer.
leadership team to hear first hand of their enthusiasm to embrace renewable technologies
in Australia and to turn the waste and resource recovery sector into one of the “go to”
industries for university graduates.
On the negative side of the equation, the ABC has reported
that the NSW EPA has uncovered a large scale illegal dumping
operation.
Finally, I was pleased to see the announcement made by Cleanaway to walk away from
their estimated $450,000 sponsorship of the Parramatta Eels rugby league team in light
of the salary cap scandal that has engulfed the club.
According to reports, this isn’t some small time fly-by-night
operation. It’s a large scale attempt to bypass the NSW
licensing scheme involving a significant rural site adjacent to the
Hawkesbury River, with up to 30 semitrailer movements per day.
I personally feel that it was the right decision and cannot agree more with a Cleanaway
spokesman who was quoted as saying “We don’t want our brand to be associated with
that type of behaviour.”
It’s this type of illegal activity that gives the industry a bad name and damages the public’s
view of all those who work hard to produce sustainable outcomes from our communities.
On the positive side of the ledger, I heard first hand at WMAA’s WasteNSW Conference
of the amazing work undertaken by the people at SUEZ in the wake of natural disasters
that have occurred throughout Australia in recent times.
I have also had the opportunity to meet with members of the REMONDIS Global
None of us wants our industry to be tarnished by the poor behaviour of a few that engage
in illegal activity. That is why WMAA, as part of its new three year strategy, will be working
to promote greater professionalism within the industry, as well as selling to the general
public all the benefits that are delivered to Australian communities around the country
that go beyond simply emptying their rubbish bins each week.
Martin Tolar
Chief Executive Officer
Waste Management Association of Australia
WMAA welcomes new Directors
Waste and Resource Management Unit. At Hyder
he delivered strategic and operational solutions
for some of the country’s most prominent public
and private clients.
WASTE
SOUTH
AUSTRALIA
CONFERENCE
22-23 SEPTEMBER 2016 • STAMFORD GRAND ADELAIDE HOTEL SA
www.wastesa.com.au
WMAA Contacts
NATIONAL PRESIDENT
Miranda Ransome
0438 270 623
NATIONAL VICE-PRESIDENT
Tony Kortegast
03 9863 8669
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Martin Tolar
02 8746 5000
STATE PRESIDENTS:
NSW
Andrew Kosciuszko
VIC
Christine Wardle
QLD
Richard Morgan
SA
Mark Rawson
TAS
Jamie Wood
WA
Rebecca Brown
0419 974 702
03 8102 9372
0488 094 969
08 8294 5571
03 6234 4110
0407 477 074
NATIONAL DIVISION CHAIRS:
CARBON
Joe Pickin
0403 562 621
BWI
Miranda Ransome 02 4928 4499
RER
Enzo Bruscella
03 9463 6411
DISCLAIMER: Arcles and papers submied for the WMAA
secon of this publicaon are an overview of the topic only and
are not intended to be a detailed statement of the law. Views are
those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the WMAA.
Under WMAA’s new Peak Membership category,
Mr Mark Venhoek, the Chief Executive Officer of
SUEZ and Mr Luke Agati, the Managing Director
and Chief Executive Officer of REMONDIS were
also appointed to the board.
Mark Venhoek has been CEO of Australia at
SUEZ environnement Company SA since
6 October 2015. Mr Venhoek has significant
global experience across the SUEZ group.
Previously, Mark was Vice President of SUEZ
environnement’s waste operations in China
L-R: Torsten Weber, Managing Director, Remondis International; Luke
where he led SUEZ’s waste management
Agati, Managing Director and CEO for REMONDIS Australia; Martin
operations across Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan,
Tolar, CEO for WMAA
mainland China and South-East Asia. He has also
held positions across Europe including Germany,
On 16 May 2016, the Waste Management Association
the Netherlands and Northern Europe.
of Australia (WMAA) held its Annual General Meeting
in Melbourne.
Mr Luke Agati is the Managing Director and
CEO for REMONDIS Australia. In his role, Luke
During the meeting, WMAA President Ms Miranda
introduced the nationalisation and expansion of
Ransome announced to the WMAA members in
REMONDIS services and operations and expanded
attendance the appointment of new directors to the
the business to Queensland, South Australia and
WMAA Board of Directors.
Western Australia. Luke is the driving force behind
Mr Tony Kortegast was returned as the Vice President. REMONDIS Australia, leading the organisation with
Tony is the Managing Director of International his strategic vision and passion for obtaining results.
Operations for Tonkin+Taylor. He has more than 40 Luke is committed to making REMONDIS Australia’s
years’ experience in geotechnical, solid waste and premier waste management and resource recovery
heavy civil engineering. During that time his work organisation with an unparalleled customer focus.
covered a range of project inputs from concept
Ms Ransome said, “It’s with great pleasure that I
development to public and consent processes, and
welcome these three new directors onto the board
detailed design and construction management.
of WMAA. These appointments represent WMAA’s
Mr Adam Faulkner is the successful candidate elected strategy of re-engaging with the industry’s leadership
by WMAA members to fill the final directly elected while also striking a balance with democratically
board position. Adam is the General Manager of the member elected board representation.
Eastern Waste Management Authority (SA). After 10
Tony’s reappointment as Vice President also ensures
years managing waste and energy recovery services in
WMAA has strong and stable leadership which is
one of Australia’s fastest growing population corridors
essential as we execute our new three year strategy
in NSW, Adam left his Director role at Tweed Shire
for the organisation and the industry.”
Council to head up Hyder Consulting’s Melbourne
WMAA
CAREER
CENTRE
u
er
ns
c
y,
of
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e
at
e
nt
p.
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a
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Planning and infrastructure //
The challenging future of
Australia’s waste infrastructure
By Conrad Bem
AS URBAN growth increases, so too
does the amount of waste generated.
This raises all sorts of challenges and
risks for the sector, as outlined by Suez
Sydney landfills manager Phil Carbins
at the recent Waste 2016 Conference in
Coffs Harbour.
Carbins opined that the waste sector
was managing a number of things well,
including dry and kerbside recyclables
as well as construction and demolition
waste recycling.
“However, all is not that rosy. In
the past, we’ve installed over 15 waste
processing facilities with a capacity
in excess of 1.1 million tonnes, with
a capital investment in excess of
$1 billion in today’s dollars and during
that time, seven of these have either
closed or changed hands within excess
of $500 million of write-downs,”
he explained.
He said the sector needed to learn
from those experiences, which have
included mismatches between what the
sector thought it could do for a given
price with the actual operating cost
of a facility. Carbins made the point
that 20 years ago, the sector couldn’t
predict where it’d be today just as it
couldn’t predict where it would be 20
years from today.
“We think we know, we can plan, we
can develop, we can develop contracts
around it but we don’t know so we’ve
got to factor in that flexibility,”
Carbins said.
Waste auditing data is something
Carbins thought was very important,
but he said the sector had to “be careful
about where we’re capturing that data”.
He gave the example of a 4kg watermelon
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dumped into a red litter bin, pointing to
the fact that once it had gone through
the various processing stages, it became
unrecoverable.
“So we need to be really careful
about what goes into our facilities for
waste processing; these are risks for
our infrastructure,” he explained.
Another challenge area is community
expectations. Carbins explained they
were growing and evolving forever,
including the rise of environmental
justice as a new language that was now
included in some Victorian legislation.
“It’s a concept that we can talk
about but the reality is do we really
understand what it means and I suspect
that because of the broad scope and
rubbery definitions, I think the first
time it will be tested about what this
really means will be in the courts,
which will be too late for when we’re
trying to develop our infrastructure
projects,” Carbins mused.
More people means more waste; a
simple equation resulting in changes to
population and urbanisation, increases
in high density living as well as shifts
in demographics, manufacturing and
waste industry processes.
“These all have impacts on the types
of waste that we are trying to collect
and process,” he said.
“Therefore, it’s very hard to predict
what it’s going to be like in the future,
so again, we need that flexibility in
that process and we also heard this
morning that waste generation is
outgrowing our economic production.”
Carbins explained that the necessary
infrastructure to handle the growth
would require identifying land, knowing
exactly where waste facilities would be
located, then locking away the location
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in legislation and planning developed
by government.
“Once the locations are identified,
then we can go through and make sure
the zoning applies, we can make sure
we have the approvals to build and
operate these facilities and we also
need the buffer zones to ensure we can
protect these facilities into the future,
particularly around the urbanisation
and growth of our cities,” Carbins said.
Broadly, Carbins felt the sector had
done well with the “low-hanging fruit”
of waste; construction and demolition
waste, green waste, and kerbside
recycling. But that leaves quite a lot of
waste still to be managed.
“I think we’re now getting into the
hard stuff and [it] takes more time,
more energy, more thinking, more
technology and all of that comes at a
higher price,” he noted.
“If we want to move from the 65%
to the 75%, how much is that actually
going to cost and what are we prepared
to pay to achieve that? These are the
things that I think will continue to
impact on our infrastructure because
they are going to be higher technology
and higher cost.”
Contractual arrangements did not
pass Carbins’ scrutiny. He posed the
question about whether the local
government procurement model was
the right one to achieve the future
goals of society and waste managers.
He said contracts needed to allocate
risk to the right people, be long-term,
have several offtake or sub-contractor
arrangements and talk about the
outcome performance of what was to
be achieved.
He said the future would likely
involve a network solution, allowing
different kinds of waste to be processed
at different locations, moved around
to achieve contract outcomes. One
potential pathway to that goal was the
use of an alliance model, whereby all
parties are involved in decisions rather
than a “master-servant” arrangement.
Carbins said it was about sharing
the benefits and working together to
overcome the challenges.
He gave the example of the Aroona
Alliance in Western Australia between
Suez, Broadspectrum and the WA Water
Corporation.
“It’s a huge contract, a 15-year
contract. The key message here is
that over the last three years, there’s
been over $16 million of realisable,
sustainable benefits achieved out of
the fact that it’s an alliance and this
Community expectations around waste processing are constantly evolving. Protests like
this statue in South Australia are one potential negative outcome, but Suez’s Phil Carbins
feels “broad scope and rubbery definitions” of environmental justice may end up being
tested in court. Picture credit: Andy Farnsworth, Flickr CC.
is actually a significant benefit to
all of those players and this is what
can happen with an alliance,” Carbins
explained.
As a final point, he set out what
the sector needed to build and
operate successful waste management
infrastructure in the future.
“We need land, we need strategic
planning, we need to have it in the
right place and we need to have it
locked away in stone, in documents
that everybody can see. I’ve yet to
find that in NSW and I’m not sure
anyone from the [NSW] Department of
Planning is here, I suspect not because
they probably don’t want to hear the
story,” he said.
Carbins added that the sector needed
zoning, approvals, the right policy
and regulation, proper contracts with
flexibility and the allocation of risk
to those best able to manage it. He
opined that long-term contracts were
needed, moving past seven years to 10,
15 or even 20; for Carbins, those were
the timeframes needed for investment
iw
in major infrastructure.
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23
Council innovation //
Tracking innovation in
local government
INSIDE Waste is always keen to
champion innovative councils and has
been a big supporter of the Australasian
Waste and Recycling Expo’s (AWRE)
innovation awards. This year, AWRE will
once again celebrate ground-breaking
projects both by local government and
equipment by industry, which will be
showcased in the Innovation Zone at
24
the event. Here’s looking back at the
councils that sought novel ideas or
implemented innovative initiatives in
the last 24 months and have made an
appearance in Inside Waste. If you are
an innovative council with a project to
share, head to http://bit.ly/1W1I6M8
for more information on the awards.
Entries close on June 27.
JUNE 2014
OCTOBER 2014
DECEMBER 2014
Perth considers going underground
Poly puts more cash in Moira's pocket
Developing a healthy appetite for
waste intelligence
In May 2014, the City of Perth
released its first 10-year strategy,
which
expressed
openness
in
exploring
novel
waste
collection ideas, including going
underground. The issue that Perth,
like other cities faced was the
narrow and congested laneways
located behind old buildings. As
the city developed, it became
increasingly difficult for collection
trucks to access service bins in
those laneways. At the time,
the city said it was considering
the use of a pneumatic waste
conveyance system or for a better
visual, a machine that could be
described as a giant underground
vacuum cleaner with tentacles.
The system would be able to draw
waste to an established central
area and materials would travel up
to 80 kilometres per hour through
the system's pipelines.
Like most regional councils, transporting material to a
central hub for processing is neither an economically
nor environmentally viable option but neither is
landfilling. After receiving a $45,000 grant from the
Victorian government, Moira Shire Council decided
to take the (polystyrene) bull by the horns and
purchased a Miltek custom-built mobile expanded
polystyrene (EPS) machine. What might seem like an
easy decision for metropolitan councils was actually
challenging for the regional council, which had
various electricity limitations at its transfer stations.
Miltek's EPS9000 was built to run on single-phase
electricity and modified to run with a reduced start-up
current demand, allowing it to be powered by a small,
onboard diesel generator. It also came on a custommade trailer. In about 18 months, the council saved
enough in landfill costs to purchase a second unit.
After identifying a need to better
monitor incoming waste streams,
Bundaberg Regional Council in
Queensland started a four-month
project to extend the capability
of its Mandalay Technologies
data system installed in 2007.
The council wanted to change
the opening hours of its facilities
to maximise the times that best
suited its customers. It also
wanted to maximise its income
by ensuring different categories
could be set up for different
charging systems. The council
workshopped with Mandalay and
moved from 60 waste products,
which limited its reporting and
charging capacity, to five groups
in 20 categories and an excess of
150 products. By improving its
data governance, the council was
also able to capture data to assess
the impacts to its operations and
has increased the tonnage of
waste transported by its collection
vehicles. In the first year of
making those improvements, the
council saved $180,000.
// Council innovation
APRIL 2015
DECEMBER 2015
FEBRUARY 2016
Bioenergy – why it’s worked for
one council
Mackay goes high-tech
Wyong rolls out new landfill cover
In a matter of three months,
Mackay Regional Council on the
central coast of Queensland had
reduced the volume of waste it sent
to landfill by about 10%. It also
developed a solution to process
glass fines, thanks to a new glass
crushing and optical sorter, the
latter said to the be the first of
its kind installed for a regional
council. Through a partnership
with
engineering
company
Recycling Design and Technology
(RDT), as well as funding from the
Australian Packaging Covenant
and the Queensland Department
of Environment amounting to
$600,000, the council built a $2.6
million materials recovery facility
that can process eight tonnes of
commingled waste per hour. The
MRF receives about 2600 tonnes of
glass a year and since its operation
in July 2015, all glass received at
the facility is being recycled.
In April 2015, Wyong Shire Council on NSW's Central
Coast embarked on a search for an automated
tarp deployment system for its Buttonderry Waste
Management Facility. The system had to be able to
withstand "attacks" from wildlife, result in cost
savings, and of course, be able to automatically
deploy and retract the landfill cover. Nine months
later, it commissioned a system that has generated
national interest across the sector, with council
representatives from as far Darwin and Port Hedland
making the trip down the east coast to view the
system. The system comprises 800 square metres of
impermeable and fire-rated tarp and eliminates the
need to load, cart, deposit and spread a layer of soil
over the landfill daily. The council estimated that it
saves 80 cubic metres of valuable landfill space every
day by eliminating the daily soil cover.
The Pyrenees Shire Council in
western Victoria embarked on
a bioenergy trial in 2014 and in
12 months, its 100kW wood chip
boiler installed at the Beaufort
Hospital had resulted in more
than $30,000 in LPG cost savings
by taking over most of the heating
load from the existing LPG system.
The Regional Bioenergy Project
came out of a perceived need
to establish a demonstration
project for bioenergy and thanks
to funding through the state
government's Victorian Adaptation
and Sustainability Partnership,
the council was able to purchase a
top-of-the-line Hargassner boiler
with all the bells and whistles
supplied by New Zealand-based
Living Energy. According to the
council, the boiler had been a
"good neighbour", emitting no
smoke or noise and feedstock
was easily acquired from the local
sawmill.
25
Energy from waste //
EfW: new dialogues needed
By Jacqueline Ong
A SURVEY examining community
expectations and concerns around
energy from waste (EfW) has presented
some interesting findings that could
very well turn public consultations on
its head.
With funding from the NSW EPA, Elton
Consulting and the Southern Sydney
Region of Councils (SSROC) embarked
on a study last year to find out how
communication and dialogues around
EfW should be designed, particularly
as a national language around energy
recovery was, and still is, pretty nonexistent.
“This study was deliberately timed
and designed to be free of any specific
proposal but instead, examined the
values that underpinned getting a
social licence to operate,” SSROC
strategic regional coordinator Hazel
Storey said.
The two-stage study involved
residents across the SSROC region,
which comprises some 1.6 million
people and 16 councils. SSROC alone
produces more than 20% of NSW’s
household waste. Meanwhile, the
second stage took a deep dive into
the Canterbury-Bankstown region
where the councils wanted to get an
idea of the local perspective and gain
insights into the region’s two major
cultural groups – the Vietnamese and
Arabic speaking population. All up,
1500 people were surveyed online or
by telephone, and 10 focus groups of
nine residents each were conducted.
The aim of the study was to determine
what effective consultations entailed;
given “effective consultation” was a
criterion in the NSW EfW policy under
the good neighbour principle.
Mind your language
SSROC and Elton Consulting asked
the community to consider words
commonly used when it came to waste
management to get an idea of how
language provoked or motivated the
community.
“It was very clear from the outset
that the community had a really visceral
reaction to burning and incineration
and these are terms that are going to
be problematic and loaded within the
community so we need a whole new
conversation about how EfW operates,”
Elton Consulting project manager Vicky
Critchley said.
And what should this new
conversation include?
“SSROC residents liked terminology
that is clear, informative, non26
sloganistic
and
environmentally
positive. Green is good but it was also
important that the words and images
didn’t sell the message. They did not
want green wash,” Crtichley said.
Words that resonated with residents
included renewable energy from waste,
transforming waste to energy and
waste to green energy. On the other
hand, garbage to power, burning waste
to make energy, and high temperature
incineration were the most disliked
phrases.
Images of existing EfW plants
were also shown to residents and
unsurprisingly, pictures that showed
facilities with plumes of smoke coming
out of chimneys were unpopular
amongst survey respondents. Having
said that, the power of discussions
became evident.
“When we showed the same image
to our focus groups, gave them some
context, and allowed them to discuss it
openly, the image was seen in a much
more favourable light. They were able
to talk about what was coming out of
those chimneys and what it could be,”
Critchley said.
The community was also candid about
where they wanted information to come
from. While residents acknowledged
that EfW is a complex issue and
proponents had to communicate to a
wide and broad audience, they asked
that a variety of mediums be used to
communicate messages, plain English
utilised, and most importantly, that
they were not “talked down to”.
“There were significant concerns
around who was trusted to provide
information,” Critchley added.
“Politicians, the media, planning
bodies and waste management
organisations were not seen as
reliable. People wanted to hear from
independent experts, academics, and
scientific organisations. They also
wanted to hear from organisations that
were operating or regulating facilities
overseas.
“The EPA was seen as a trustworthy
information source and as a government
body, it was one of the few that was
seen as highly trustworthy. Even
though council was universally one of
the most common information sources,
it was only trusted by about half of
the respondents. Trust in general was a
major issue for the community.”
How, not where
The language used may be important
but this is where it gets interesting.
When asked what mattered most
to residents about how their waste
is managed, the “how” was more
important than the “where” and there
was a general lack of “nimby-ness”
(nimby: not in my backyard) in the
attitudes of residents surveyed.
“It was very important that the
waste is managed in a way that’s clean
and healthy and this encompassed
toxicity, public health and it had to be
environmentally friendly. Issues around
sustainability,
intergenerational
equity and reducing waste [were
important] and there was quite a lot of
conversation around where [EfW] fits
in the waste hierarchy. Recycling was
still a higher objective,” Storey said.
“So this was our take home message
– the how is more important than
the where, which we thought turned
the usual community consultation
process on its head a little bit because
proponents might first think, you’ve
got to get the land and then you
might go to community and talk about
the technology and almost sell the
technology as a solution.
100%
80%
60%
77%
51%
“Instead, we’re suggesting taking
a longer, more strategic journey with
the community and actually unpacking
those concepts around what clean and
healthy means and what good for the
environment means.”
It also became clear during the
focus group discussions that cost
effectiveness was not a major talking
point. While residents wanted the
cost to be similar to current waste
management fees, they were more
focussed on converting all waste
products into reusable or recoverable
resources.
“But we wanted to unpack it [the
lack of nimby-ness] a little bit more.
We thought this would kick in if we
asked residents in the focus groups
about having a facility in their suburb,”
Critchley said.
“If the facility has best practice
environmental controls and minimal
emissions, over a third of participants
were willing to have a facility in their
neighbourhood. Not just in their
neighbourhood but in their vicinity.
Another third were undecided and
wanted information about the size
and operation of the development,
and a quarter were unwilling to have
a facility and that was largely due to
existing traffic issues and whether they
had the land availability within their
suburbs.
“However, people were also saying
don’t put it next to something sensitive
like houses, hospitals and schools.
But otherwise, there was much less
concern about having a facility in their
local area. They thought, let’s find an
existing landfill site or an industrial
centre and were quite happy with that.”
Seeking information
That’s not to say that the usual
18%
15%
15%
25%
31%
25%
57%
54%
82%
40%
46%
20%
18%
22%
60%
Very important
Important
Not important
0%
What matters most to people
about how their waste is managed.
(Source: Elton Consulting and SSROC)
// Energy from waste
That it is built using the latest technology
and under stringent environmental and
health regulations
13%
84%
That it is built and located to operate most
6% 17%
efficiently and effectively
That it is located away from residential areas
orother sensitive uses such as schools or
hospitals
That it is cost-neutral (ie doesn’t cost more than
current waste management processes)
12%
9%
That it is not located in my suburb or local
government area
WRF
2016
17%
17%
11%
Factors important to the development
of a renewable EfW facility in Sydney.
(Source: Elton Consulting and SSROC)
concerns such as pollution and odour
were not issues. The survey uncovered
that a majority of respondents did not,
in fact, have a clear idea about what
to be concerned about when it came
to EfW, indicating that there was still
very little knowledge in the general
community about technology in this
76%
68%
21%
23%
49%
14%
43%
Not important to extremely important
space, particularly how it relates to the
residual waste stream before it enters
landfill.
“Once there was a bit of discussion
and context around EfW, emissions were
clearly a major concern. But again, it’s
not about where but how the facility
should operate,” Critchley said.
The community was also interested
in trialling alternative methods to
landfill and were largely unsupportive
of sending waste to the tip. However,
there are still knowledge gaps to
address.
“Very few people knew that within
the next 10 to 15 years, we’d reach
capacity in our landfills and when
it comes to alternatives, 85% of
respondents had little to no knowledge
about converting waste to energy or
the opportunity to recover energy from
waste,” Storey noted.
“The other discussion that came
up, particularly from the BankstownCanterbury focus groups, was the fact
that overseas facilities have been
around for years so they’re [the people
who live/work/play near these plants]
used to them. Their advice was to use
local voices from overseas countries or
residents from those countries to help
the Aussie community become familiar
with EfW.”
Ultimately, the study showed that if
the community is taken on a journey
and educated on what happens to their
waste, where EfW fits in the waste
hierarchy, concerns about public and
environmental health addressed, and
information about tried and tested
overseas plants provided, EfW facilities
could be good neighbours and meet
the NSW EfW policy’s good neighbour
principle.
Vicky Critchley and Hazel Storey
presented their findings at Waste 2016
iw
in May.
Electronics Recycling Asia
November 15 – 18, 2016, Macau, China
n
Co
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rcu
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on
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Wo
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sh
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Pl a
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Ex
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tio
ibi
n
w w w. i cm .ch | i n f o @ i cm .ch | +41 62 785 10 00
27
Policy //
An essential industry that
needs national leadership
By Martin Tolar
AUSTRALIANS head to the polls on
July 2 and infrastructure, farmers, and
immigration have all rated a mention in
the campaign. But let’s hope politicians
do not forget about our sector.
The waste and resource recovery
industry makes at least a $14.2
billion contribution to the Australian
economy, and is integral to the lives of
all Australians, underpinning economic
growth and employment.
Effective waste management and
resource recovery is linked to our
quality of life, and plays a significant
role in environmental and public
health, planning and infrastructure,
resource and energy production, and
emergency management.
The Waste Management Association
of Australia (WMAA) represents the
breadth and depth of the Australian
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waste management and resource
recovery industry, with almost 3000
members, including large businesses,
SMEs, local and state government
agencies, service providers, and
individuals.
In this election period, WMAA is
calling on the major parties to commit
to the development of the waste and
resource recovery industry, to ensure
continued growth and contribution
to the economy, the high standard of
life we enjoy, and a driver of jobs in
the future as we transition away from
an economy centred on the mining
industry.
There are a number of issues that
WMAA considers fundamental for the
continued growth of the waste and
resource recovery industry in this
country.
For one, our value should be
recognised. After all, the sector
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containers
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28
provides an essential service to all
Australians and is an important driver
of all economic activity. We are calling
on the federal government to convene
an annual industry and government
waste summit, with representation from
federal, state, and local government.
WMAA also recommends that waste
and resource recovery be included as a
standing agenda item at the Meeting of
Environmental Ministers forum.
As waste is an issue that crosses
several
government
portfolios,
including
environment,
industry,
resources, and planning, there is a need
to ensure effective linkages operate
between portfolios/agencies, removing
barriers and supporting efficiencies in
business-government relationships.
Yes, waste and resource recovery
should reside within the environment
portfolio
but
cross
portfolio
coordination should be improved and
strong interdepartmental ties need to
be created with the industry, cities and
infrastructure, resources, and treasury
portfolios.
WMAA is also calling for greater
consistency in the nation’s regulatory
frameworks
and
instruments,
particularly as the sector is subject
to a substantial volume of regulations
and related instruments operating on
several levels of government.
What we’d like to see is greater
harmonisation of industry policies,
regulation and enforcement across
Australia to improve business efficiency
and consistency across all states.
Additionally, regulatory frameworks
need to have a built-in flexibility to
keep pace with continual adjustments
in market conditions.
WMAA is also urging parties
to consider the establishment of
a comprehensive and nationally
integrated system for the identification,
classification, treatment, disposal,
and monitoring of waste and level
the playing field between private and
public sector businesses; councils must
not force business owners to use their
waste and recycling services by the
introduction of by-laws or mandatory
service fees. Doing so is against the
principles of the National Competition
Policy.
Climate change has dominated the
discussions in the last few election
cycles but it has not been as widely
debated this time around. Having
said that, WMAA would like political
Martin Tolar
parties to consider excluding the solid
waste industry from any carbon pricing
scheme because we believe the sector’s
emissions can be controlled more
effectively through other mechanisms.
The industry’s experience with the
carbon pricing system has found it
complex and difficult.
Last, but certainly not least,
national leadership is required and the
federal government can demonstrate
leadership in a number of ways
including greater utilisation of, and
increased green procurement policies
by federal government (for e.g. the use
of secondary raw materials and support
for those markets), as well as better
planning and coordination with state
and local government jurisdictions
around waste and resource recovery
infrastructure.
The federal government could also
take the lead by developing a national
dataset, one that includes national
and common state targets and a
national reporting system for waste
and resource recovery performance and
by driving local industry/employment
development in, for example, e-waste
and energy from waste. When it
comes to EfW, we could use the $1
billion Clean Energy Innovation Fund
announced by Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull to support EfW. Currently, this
relates to “emerging technologies to
make the leap from demonstration to
commercial deployment” and the role
for EfW funding under this is unclear.
The government should also introduce
appropriate market instruments to
increase recovery rates and support a
national approach to container deposit
schemes and waste education.
Martin Tolar is the CEO of the Waste
Management Association of Australia.
iw
Contact: martin@wmaa.asn.au
Local government //
Merger mania – what do
amalgamations mean
for waste contracts?
By Gavin Shapiro
ON MAY 12, 2016 the governor of
NSW proclaimed the amalgamations of
more than 40 councils in Sydney and
regional NSW. Further amalgamations
are proposed, pending litigation in the
Land and Environment Court of NSW.
These amalgamations come as a
result of the NSW state government’s
$1 billion Fit for the Future initiative,
which followed a three-year period
of consultation, aimed at resolving a
number of key issues with the current
system of local government. Relevantly
for the waste industry, the government
has sought to increase the scale and
financial viability of councils, so that
they are better placed to procure longterm infrastructure.
The question is, what does all of this
mean for the waste industry and waste
services contracts?
The process of creating new
councils
To understand the implications, we
must first look at the process used to
amalgamate councils. As a first official
step, the Minister for Local Government
referred 35 merger proposals to the
Office of Local Government’s chief
executive under the Local Government
Act 1993 (NSW) for examination.
The chief executive (by a number of
delegates) held public consultations
and considered various factors listed
in the Local Government Act. The
chief executive’s delegates then
produced reports, which were provided
to the Local Government Boundaries
Commission. The Commission in
turn considered each delegate’s
report and made a decision on each
amalgamation proposal. On the basis
of these decisions, the minister
acted on these recommendations and
had “proclamations: drafted to give
effect to the amalgamations.” The
proclamations were made on May 12,
2016.
Proclamations?
The “proclamations” are the documents,
signed by the governor, which contain
all the legal mechanisms that actually
give effect to the amalgamations,
including:
• Dissolving the old councils and
creating the new councils;
• Creating new boundaries (especially
the new City of Parramatta and
Cumberland);
• Removal of all councillors and
mayors;
• Transfer of staff; and
• Transfer of assets, rights and
liabilities.
What happens to waste
contracts?
The proclamation contains a clause,
which states that all assets, rights and
liabilities of the former councils are
transferred to the new councils (known
as a “vesting order”). This includes
the transfer of rights and liabilities
under contracts – such as waste
services contracts. This means that
most waste services contracts should
survive the amalgamations intact,
and automatically transfer to the new
council. However, as they say, the
devil is in the detail and in practice,
the vesting orders have the potential
to give rise to a number of complex
issues. For example:
1. The nature and boundaries of
services
The way in which a contract defines
the services to be delivered – whether
geographically, by reference to a
particular council or local government
area – will affect how smoothly
a contract transitions during the
amalgamations. The particular contract
should be reviewed to identify any
problems that may arise.
2. Council splits
A number of councils will be split
between two neighbouring councils –
in particular, parts of Auburn, Holroyd,
Parramatta, the Hills and Hornsby are
being carved up amongst the new City
of Parramatta and Cumberland Council.
This is a much more complex scenario
than a straight amalgamation.
For example, if waste services were
previously provided to council X, and
council X is now geographically split
between councils A, B and C, who
does the waste service provider now
provide services to? All three councils?
One of them? None? The terms of each
contract will need to be carefully
reviewed against the proclamation to
answer these questions and ensure that
any issues are identified.
3. Governing law of the contract
The proclamation is made under NSW
law. Thankfully, most NSW councils
generally insist on waste services
contracts being subject to NSW laws,
meaning that the proclamations are
effective for such contracts.
However, if your contract is governed
by the law of another jurisdiction (for
e.g. Queensland or Victoria), then the
proclamations lack the jurisdiction
to actually have any effect on the
contract itself (even if the council has
been dissolved). It is important to
review your contract to ensure that the
contract was made under NSW law, and
if not, to consider the implications.
Gavin
Shapiro
4. Change in law clause
Most waste services contracts contain
what is known as a “change in law”
clause – a clause that governs what
happens when laws change (including,
usually,
legal
instruments
like
proclamations).
You should review your contracts
to determine whether a council
amalgamation will engage your
contract’s change in law clause, and
what the implications are.
So what should I do next?
As they say, the devil is in the
detail. You will need to review all
waste services contracts against the
proclamations (or better yet – have
a lawyer with experience in waste
services contracts do it!) to work
out the full impact of the changes.
Hopefully, where any issues arise, such
as with the council boundaries being
split and altered, commercial sense will
prevail in negotiations.
In the long term, the amalgamations
mean that individual councils will have
increased purchasing power and greater
resources to pursue ambitious waste
infrastructure projects. Hopefully, the
amalgamations mark the first step in
a new era in the procurement of waste
services.
Gavin Shapiro is a senior associate
at Henry Davis York Lawyers. He has
particular expertise in the waste
industry including the procurement
of waste services, environmental
prosecutions and litigation, advising
clients on environmental regulation and
compliance, assisting in infrastructure
projects, PPPs, and the approval
of new waste facilities. Contact:
gavin.shapiro@hdy.com.au or
iw
02 9947 6797.
29
Policy //
Exploring the next big step in
Victoria’s resource recovery journey
By Adrian Vlok
VICTORIA’S resource recovery rate
currently sits at 66%, which compared
to Australia’s average rate – 52% – is
great. However, the state is not doing
quite as well as NSW, SA, and the ACT.
In a global context, Australia and
specifically Victoria are performing
well. In the US, where there are no
landfill levies in many states and the
ones that do, have levies that are fairly
low (i.e. $1-$2 a tonne), recovery
sits at 46%. Some US states do have
material landfill bans.
Over in Europe, recovery rates are
highly variable and geographically
related to the west and east. On
average, the 27 EU countries have a
recovery rate of 62% with Germany
leading the way by recovering 99%
and landfilling just 1%. Then there’s
Sweden, which is importing 800,000
tonnes of waste to power its waste to
energy plants. On the other end of the
spectrum however, you have Croatia,
Bulgaria, Malta and Romania where
recovery rates are less than 10%. For
the 10 leading European countries,
waste to energy and composting make
up approximately 35% and 20% of the
recovery rate respectively.
When considering future strategies,
we need to appreciate costs and
benefits vary across jurisdictions. For
example, a waste to energy plant in
Sweden might produce a net benefit
because the value of power, heat, and
carbon dioxide abatement is high. The
same facility would most likely produce
a net cost in Australia where electricity
prices are lower, heat demand is
low and there is no price on carbon
abatement.
Achieving increased recovery rates
would not have been possible without
community demand, a willingness
to pay more, and viable prices for
recovered materials. What are some
of the strategies communities have
adopted elsewhere that could make a
step change in Victoria’s recovery rate?
Landfill bans
Material or ‘not sorted’ landfill bans
exist across Europe, the US, and other
developed countries and are often
30
progressively introduced over a long
period of five to 10 years.
In Queensland, the Waste Reduction
and Recycling Act 2011 makes provisions
for the introduction of landfill bans and
a preliminary cost-benefit assessment
indicated a ban could have a net
benefit for certain materials.
Meanwhile, a research-based costbenefit analysis for the UK estimated
that for the materials considered, a net
benefit to society of GBP910 million
(NPV over 2009-2024; AU$1.84 billion)
could be achieved.
Landfill bans have been used to
complement landfill levies and they
are particularly relevant to Victoria.
Compared to Europe, Japan and even
other Australian states, Victoria has an
abundance of accessible, low-cost and
well-managed landfills.
If Victoria continues to pursue the
European experience where recovery
is built on recycling, composting and
eventually waste to energy, establishing
a viable composting industry and
certainly a waste to energy industry
will always be a challenge where
accessible, low-cost and well managed
landfills exist.
Landfill bans have provided a strong
incentive to sort and process waste
streams because once sorted, materials
that cannot be recovered can be
exempt from landfill levies.
Container deposit schemes
Container deposit schemes (CDS)
are known to be an effective way
to increase the levels of beverage
container recycling and reduce litter. A
CDS is currently operational in SA and
the NT, as well as a number of European
countries and some states in the US.
The proposition of a CDS has been
explored in Victoria and other states
and in 2003, a detailed review indicated
that the introduction of parallel
container deposit legislation with the
existing kerbside recycling system in
Victoria would incur net costs of $181
to $219 per household per year.
A recent cost-benefit assessment
undertaken in Tasmania estimated a
net cost of $86 million to the state,
calculated over the 21-year period.
The study also found a benefit to local
government of $28 million, through
collected container redemption and
avoidance of kerbside recycling costs.
Extended producer
responsibility (EPR)
EPR implies that producers take over
the responsibility for collecting or
taking back used goods and for sorting
and treating them for their eventual
recycling.
EPR is commonplace in Europe and
other developing countries. There are
two features of EPR policy:
1. Shifting responsibility (physically
and/or economically; fully or
partially) upstream towards the
producer and away from the waste
collector (for e.g. local government);
and
2. Providing incentives to producers
to
incorporate
environmental
considerations in the design of their
products.
NSW, Victoria and WA have adopted
generic policies that could be used to
underpin co-regulation or government
regulation for specific EPR schemes.
Australia also has a number of
voluntary low-cost schemes (for e.g.
DrumMuster).
There is justification to the argument
that EPR schemes should be developed
at a national level, mainly because
most manufacturers operate on a
national scale and consistency across
state jurisdictions would be desirable.
But are EPR schemes effective and
efficient? With respect to this question,
the Productivity Commission’s finding
from its Inquiry in Solid Waste
Management is relevant.
“Mandatory
extended
producer
responsibility and product stewardship
schemes – involving either industrygovernment
co-regulation
or
government regulation – tend to be
costly. They are unlikely to deliver a net
benefit unless there are considerable
benefits to the community from
avoiding the product’s inappropriate
disposal, for example because it is
hazardous; the relevant parties can be
readily identified and held accountable;
and compliance with the requirements
can be readily measured and enforced,”
the commission found.
Adrian Vlok
Financial incentives
A range of financial incentives have
been pursued to improve recovery rates
and these include:
• Co-investment for infrastructure
planning
and
business
case
development;
• Reducing taxes on waste separation and
processing/treatment technologies;
• Reducing taxes on recycled materials;
and
• Offering subsidies or rebates to
recovery businesses.
These financial measures have been
used to create a positive climate and
encourage private sector investment.
There is an argument that justifies
the use of financial incentives to
facilitate private sector investment in
the waste sector, compared to other
similar sectors (for e.g water, power,
roads, airports, and ports).
This argument is particularly
relevant for private sector investment
in advanced waste treatment (AWT)
infrastructure.
AWT
facilities
do
involve
disproportionate levels of commercial,
contractual,
regulatory,
and
reputational risk; and conversely
do not enjoy a greater return on
investment. About a third of AWT
projects delivered in Australia have
been partial or complete commercial
failures. Capital costs can be very high
($100-150 million for 100,000 tonnes
capacity). Compared with landfills,
AWTs are costly to run, and only survive
in Australian markets where there is a
high average gate fee.
Adrian Vlok is Talis Consultants’
director. Contact: adrian.vlok@
talisconsultants.com.au
iw
// Landfill
NSW legislative update
and solid waste landfills
By Todd Robinson
IN APRIL 2016, the NSW EPA released
the second edition of the Environmental
Guidelines for Solid Waste Landfills (the
Guidelines). More prescriptive than the
previous 1996 version, the Guidelines
have been written to include and
address updated legislation, policy
and goals for landfilling in NSW in
addition to addressing updated landfill
technologies and techniques. This
includes technical detail and minimum
standards associated with:
• Design and construction techniques
such as leachate barrier systems;
• Effective site operations including
water management, covering of
waste and amenity issues;
• Monitoring and reporting protocols
including ground/surface water
monitoring and landfill gas; and
• Post-closure management requirements including final capping and
revegetation.
The Guidelines also require that
technical landfill design reports and
Construction Quality Assurance (CQA)
documentation for all major landfill
works must be prepared by appropriately
qualified and experienced persons,
which was not previously identified.
The Guidelines will apply to general
solid waste and restricted solid waste
landfills and be used to:
• Assess operational and post-closure
issues of existing landfills;
• Assess landfill licence applications
for new or modified licences
issued under the Protection of the
Environment Operations Act 1997
(POEO Act); and
• Be the basis for the EPA’s comments
and input for new landfill cells to be
assessed under the Environmental
Planning and Assessment Act
1979 (EP&A Act). For example, the
Guidelines include recommended
buffer distances and/or locational
requirements for new landfill cells,
which support and reiterate landfill
siting buffers set out in the NSW
Department of Urban Affairs and
Planning’s (1996) EIS Guideline:
Landfilling.
The minimum standards within the
Guidelines are identified through the
identification of required outcomes on
specific landfill issues, followed by a
description of acceptable measures
to address the required outcomes.
This provides a great deal of direction
and clarity to landfill operators on
technical requirements and issues
and in doing so, identifies the EPA’s
expectations with regard to the
assessment of issues. The benefit of
this approach is the upfront clarity on
the scope of assessment for landfill
operators (and potential operators),
which is more likely to result in
robust assessment documentation that
adequately and consistently addresses
assessment requirements resulting in
more timely and efficient assessment
and determination (and consequent
outcomes).
However, while clarity and direction
are provided within the Guidelines, the
flipside of this prescriptive approach
is that there is little flexibility for
innovation and/or new technologies
and techniques in managing or
proposing new landfill cells.
The Guidelines seek to address
this through permitting potential
alternative measures where they can
be demonstrated to meet the required
outcomes. For example, on particular
issues such as leachate barrier systems,
the covering of waste, and/or final
capping and vegetation, specific
directions are provided in the Guidelines
on how to propose an alternative
approach. Therefore, the Guidelines
seek to provide a balance between a
prescriptive approach that provides
clarity and direction to operators and
a fit-for-purpose approach that allows
for innovation and future technologies
as they are identified.
The focus of the Guidelines on
minimum standards in the design,
construction and operation of landfills
and the requirement for technical
landfill design reports and CQA
documentation to be prepared by
qualified and experienced persons
is consistent with potential draft
amendments to the EP&A Act, which
were announced by the Minister
for Planning on May 6, 2016. While
these draft amendments have not
been released, it has been identified
that there will be an increased focus
on “strengthening the focus on good
design as part of decision-making”
during assessment.
Further, key proposed EP&A Act
amendments that are reported to be
considered for implementation by the
end of 2016 that may be of relevance
to landfill and waste projects include:
• Community engagement: consolidation
of community consultation provisions
including
potential
mandatory
consultation prior to Development
Application (DA) lodgement.
• Environmental assessment: clarifying
and streamlining the environmental
assessment provisions, including:
› Potentially integrating other
licenses with development consent
conditions for state significant
development;
› Potentially changing when the
referral of DAs to other NSW
government agencies is required;
and
› Incorporating state significant
infrastructure into Part 5 of the
EP&A Act.
• Review and appeals: consolidating
provisions of review and appeals.
• Transitional Part 3As: removing
transitional Part 3A projects from
the system, including modifications.
Todd
Robinson
• Review of State Environmental
Planning Policies: including the likely
repeal of 16 State Environmental
Planning Policies (SEPPs), with
further work to identify how the
remaining SEPPs can be rationalised.
Todd Robinson is a director and
principal environmental planner at Plan
Environmental. He is responsible for
delivering professional strategic and
statutory planning services and advice
on waste projects in accordance with
relevant NSW state and Commonwealth
jurisdictions. Contact: trobinson@
iw
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31
Landfill //
Transitioning a rural landfill
Gloucester, which sits on the foothills of the World Heritage Barrington Tops National Park,
can now also be proud of its much-improved landfill. (Picture credit: Simon Scott).
By Jacqueline Ong
UP until 2014, the former Gloucester
Shire Council - it is now part of the
Mid-Coast Council following the recent
spate of council amalgamations in
NSW - was not charging its 5000 or
so residents any landfill fees despite
being in the levy-paying area. Whilst
great for the residents, the lack of
charges coupled with the lack of a
weighbridge meant the council’s levy
was rising exponentially.
The shire is home to a 16ha landfill
located on a quarry site and it has
been in operation for about three
decades. While there were “a few”
management documents and systems
on-site, the council’s environment and
waste coordinator Tanya Parkinson told
delegates who attended Waste 2016
in May that historically, waste at the
contractor-run landfill had been buried
and burnt... and this was only one of
the many issues at the site.
“Primarily, there was a lack of onsite control. We had contamination in
green waste, inappropriate facilities
and stockpiles of recyclables,”
Parkinson said.
Very little sorting was being done
at the landfill, council did not own or
operate any compaction machinery at
the site - all it had was a tractor - and
the set-up of the landfill allowed for
stockpiling at the entrance, right in
front of the tip face.
In 2011, a decision was made to
implement necessary on-ground changes
to transition to a more desirable waste
system and after a three-year detailed
planning process that drew on the
expertise of Alan Taylor and Associates,
documents were finalised to move
forward with the transition.
“From these plans and documents,
it became evident that we would need
major on-site changes. It would be more
effective, both environmentally and
economically, to have a council run the
landfill, and we were also able to inform
council of the imperative to introduce
fees and charges,” Parkinson said.
Major changes
The work began in mid-2014 and
by October that year, the landfill
had transitioned from being run by
a contractor to being managed and
operated by the council.
Major changes were also made to
the site including the installation of
a weighbridge, revegetation work,
enlarging of the green waste area,
and the construction of a community
recycling centre. The council also set
up appropriate areas for residents
to place recyclable household waste
without having to go to the tip face
and included sealed roads in major
traffic areas. But it wasn’t all smooth
sailing.
“We had a number of constrictions.
One was a hill where the weighbridge
now sits and there was a big shed onsite. So we had to do major earthworks
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to include the weighbridge. At the
time, when we put those infrastructure
in, there was no power or water onsite,” Parkinson said.
“We did a cost-benefit analysis and
decided to put in solar so the whole
weighbridge operates on solar.”
Despite a concerted communication
program,
residents
were
also
dissatisfied that they now had to pay
fees and charges at the landfill.
“We had a staff member go on
stress leave and not return after one
encounter!” Parkinson revealed.
“Thankfully, this behaviour has
dissipated and we have received more
compliments than complaints. We’ve
also had less traffic at the landfill and
our truck drivers tell us there are now
more waste bins being put out. In fact,
there were 50 more bins put out on
the kerbside a day after the fees and
charges were introduced showing that
people were using the infrastructure.”
Today,
council
continues
to
undertake work at the site but major
improvements have been made, which
have proven to be beneficial and a
step-up from what the landfill was two
years ago. For one, council now has
pride and ownership of the site.
“Green waste is now mulched
and stockpiled and it’s kept away
from the tip face so we have very
little contamination. We also like to
showcase [instances of] reuse and
recycling so we’ve put in a pathway to
illustrate what you can do with crushed
glass,” Parkinson added.
“We also have an operational op-shop
and we have appropriate machinery - a
compactor and a front loader.”
Over the last two years, the volume
of waste has reduced, which means the
amount paid in levies has dropped.
Recycling, despite dipping in 2014-15
after the bulk of stockpiled recyclables
owned by the former contractor was
cleared, leading to a spike in 2013-14,
is once again on the rise.
The shire has even gone on to win
awards, from scoring in the waste
category for its population size in the
Keep Australia Beautiful (KAB) 2015
Tidy Towns Awards to a much bigger
fish - it was crowned the overall state
winner in the same awards that year for
its sustainability efforts.
Key observations
For regional councils considering a
similar transition, Parkinson pointed
to a few considerations that local
governments should bear in mind.
The landfill face before the transition in 2014. (Picture credit: The former Gloucester Shire
Council, now Mid-Coast Council)
“The waste and recycling industry is
moving very quickly and as such, there
are many new people with passion
but little to no experience. Gaining
this experience and knowledge takes
time but with the many changes and
regulations, and on-ground training
required to meet those regulations,
this lack of experience and knowledge
base can lead to delays in on-ground
changes. This is especially so with
councils as they cut staff budgets to
show that they are fit for the future,”
she said.
“Secondly, there appears to be no
consideration in the new landfilling
guidelines for rural landfills of the cost
for complying with these guidelines,
which most people seem to take as
regulation, which will be large,” adding
that NSW should follow in Victoria’s
footsteps where this is considered in
their guidelines.
“And finally, I think there needs to
be funding from the EPA for onsite
environmental issues at landfills.
In my experience, historic landfills
have some sort of systemic low-grade
environmental issues that are difficult
or expensive to fix. These issues have
not been dealt with in this round of
iw
funding.”
33
Disaster waste //
Planning for disaster waste –
the SA model
Picture credit: Petra Bensted, Flickr CC
By Jacqueline Ong
A 10,000 Average Recurrence Interval
(ARI) earthquake in Adelaide would
generate 8.8 million tonnes of debris,
equivalent to about twice the volume
of waste the state produces annually.
Meanwhile, if a 300 ARI bushfire
occurs, 1.22 million tonnes of debris
would be generated. Is SA equipped to
deal with all that waste?
That was the purpose of a disaster
waste management scoping study
commissioned by federal government
body Disaster Resilient Australia and
Green Industries SA last year, after the
latter’s CEO Vaughan Levitzke witnessed
firsthand the damage and unresolved
waste issues that continue to plague
Japan following the 2011, 9.0 undersea
megathrust earthquake and tsunami.
Led by Rawtec, the study, said to be
a first for Australia, found that there
was no set framework for managing
disaster waste in SA. Instead, disaster
waste management has been a reactive
exercise and has for the most part, been
carried out effectively through the
joint efforts of a range of organisations
and individuals.
Speaking at the Waste Management
Association of Australia’s (WMAA)
inaugural WasteNSW 2016 in April,
Rawtec managing director and principal
consultant Mark Rawson told delegates
without contingency planning, volumes
of disaster debris had the potential
to overwhelm a community’s waste
and recycling infrastructure and could
impede disaster response and recovery
activities. However, if funding can be
found to implement the next stage
of Rawtec’s plan, which Rawson told
Inside Waste could be replicated across
Australia, it could positively impact
the speed and cost of recovery, provide
local employment post-disaster, build
capacity, and deliver recycled products
to rebuild infrastructure in affected
communities.
SA’s disaster management
capacity
At the moment, there are 30 major
facilities in SA that could handle
disaster waste volumes across the
state, namely landfill as well as
tips specially licenced to receive
asbestos, construction and demolition
recyclers, waste to energy sites,
organic processing plants, and metal
recyclers. However, these resources
could very quickly be overwhelmed if
anything other that a small-scale event
occurs, as Rawtec disaster metrics and
calculator tool showed.
“We covered the type of disasters
we might face in SA and they’re pretty
common across all areas – severe
storms, bush fires, earthquakes and
flooding. So they were the four disaster
types that we explored and we were
looking at the larger scale activities
and how much waste and the types of
waste that might be generated from
them,” Rawson said.
Figure 1: Disaster debris volumes for select disaster scenarios in SA
10,000,000
9,000,000
Filling the gaps
8,800,000
8,000,000
7,000,000
tonnes
6,000,000
5,000,000
4,000,000
3,000,000
1,220,000
2,000,000
670,000
1,000,000
Source: GISA
34
290,000
10,000 ARI
earthquake
“Within the study there’s a model
that generates how much waste and the
type of waste that will come from each
of the events at varying magnitudes
so there’s now sort of a baseline. For
example, if there was a one in 10,000year earthquake in Adelaide, it would
generate 8.8 million tonnes and to put
that into context, we send less than a
million tonnes to landfill in Adelaide
and our total resource recovery is in
the order of 4.5 million tonnes... we
just don’t have the facilities that could
manage and process that volume of
material.
“Now, that is the worst case scenario
but even looking at things like large
bushfires (see Figure 1 for disaster
debris volume estimates for selected
scenarios), they could very quickly
overwhelm our infrastructure and the
ability for councils to manage it.”
Rawson acknowledged that the
models in the study may not necessarily
occur but the point is to have a tool
to provide data and information on
the magnitude of waste that the state
would have to deal with in the event
of a disaster.
300 ARI
bushfire
1,000 ARI
earthquake
40,000
25,000
1,000 ARI 70 ARI severe 100 ARI flood
severe storm
storm
To provide better insight into the gaps
in SA’s disaster waste management
plan and infrastructure, Rawson
worked with two international experts
in disaster waste – Charlotte Brown
from Christchurch who was actively
involved in the 2011 earthquake and
Mike Cowing, who is part of the UN’s
global disaster waste response team.
“We got very good insights in terms
of what has worked and what hasn’t.
In Christchurch, it was more of what
didn’t work for them and what didn’t
happen. In that first week, they didn’t
have a team that had an idea of where
to start so there was a long delay in
terms of being able to get people who
were suitably qualified to direct the
management of the waste,” Rawson said.
“They also didn’t have a clearly
identified storage location and they
// Disaster waste
ended up doing two things. One was
they had temporary storage areas and
two, they ended up changing some
regulations and legislation, which
they thought would help people but
actually created temporary dumps in
the city. This turned out to be more
problematic and people simply walked
away from them leaving the state with
the liabilities.”
Based on those learnings, the team
identified potential skills, administration
and equipment for disaster waste
management,
including
strategic
management and coordination of the
overall disaster waste management
response, collection and transport of
waste, and operation of processing
facilities, and explored the opportunity
for developing pre-approved panels of
suppliers.
A high-level review was also
undertaken of SA’s regulatory framework
for disaster waste management and it
found that while current regulations and
policies could help facilitate improved
outcomes, potential challenges could
also arise. These challenges include the
increased costs of debris management
due to resource recovery requirements
and the waste levy, and a slowdown in
the speed of recovery due to the time
taken to get development approvals and
licenses to establish new facilities or
change/approve activities at existing
facilities to process larger volumes of
waste. These impacts were discussed
with the EPA, which assured Rawtec
that it had the powers to respond to
specific waste management needs in
times of crises, including an ability
to grant exemptions and implement
emergency powers.
One key learning and consideration
was the need for temporary debris
storage sites.
“You need to identify and know where
your storage sites are and how to access
them because you don’t know how your
transport network might be affected by
the disaster event,” Rawson explained.
“So what we did as part of the study
was identify potential sites in Adelaide
and in the broader regional areas as
there are lots of closed landfills around
and they’re a logical place to start
because they’ve usually been built in
a less sensitive area and are closed.
They also have some ability to manage
the environmental aspects of waste
and leachate. So you potentially have
these temporary storage facilities that
recyclers can process from or landfillers
can take from.
“The other thing is, even though SA
has a lot landfill capacity, the cells
aren’t built ready for landfill disposal.
You may have future capacity that you
can build at a site but it’s not just
sitting there. The capacity is there to
cater for the ongoing waste generation,
not for disaster. So temporary storage
locations are a key thing.”
Future planning
Rawtec’s final, in-depth report, which
also includes the waste profiles for
a range of disasters common to SA,
is the first step in developing and
implementing a proper, centralised
plan for disaster waste management.
Having worked with a number of
emergency response departments such
as the SA Country Fire Service, State
Emergency Service and SA Police,
Rawtec was able to fill the gaps in
these organisations’ plans, which will
come in handy in pushing a waste
management strategy across the line.
“At the end of the study, we went
back to these emergency response
agencies and showed them the findings
and our recommendations. There was
very strong support for a disaster waste
management plan to be embedded in
the state emergency response and all of
Mark Rawson
them identified that this [the lack of a
waste plan in the overall strategy] was
a current gap,” Rawson said.
“But with all these things, someone
has to fund it. GISA is trying to
coordinate funding for the next stage,
which is implementation. GISA funded
half of the study and Disaster Resilience
Australia funded the other half and
here is where the opportunity is – this
plan and model are not just specific to
SA. The logic is very similar across all
jurisdictions so there is potential for it
to morph into something with national
support.
“For now, the plan is for GISA to
develop the actual support plan to sit
under our SA emergency management
system in the next financial year.” iw
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35
Product stewardship //
Painting the town red
By Jacqueline Ong
AFTER six years of discussions and being
placed on the federal Environment
Minister’s priority list for product
stewardship for a consecutive number
of years, Australia now has a national
product stewardship scheme for leftover
architectural and decorative paint of
containers between one and 20 litres.
Launched on May 2, Paintback is a
voluntary, industry-led scheme that
has support from all state and territory
governments. It will be administered
by paint manufacturers and funded
by a waste levy of 15 cents per litre
to the wholesale prices of these types
of paint, a levy authorised by the
Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission in October.
The scheme’s founding members
include
five
paint
companies
representing 28 major brands – Dulux
Group, Haymes Paints, PPG Industries,
Valspar, and Resene – and Cleanaway
has signed on to a three-year contract
as the scheme’s national partner to
provide drop-off and collection services
across the country. The company will
also treat and process the waste paint.
Speaking at Waste 2016 just days
after the scheme was launched,
Paintback chief executive Karen
Gomez said product stewardship is
transforming the way Australia deals
with waste, noting that some of the
features of Paintback were “quite
transformational”.
“It was really the listing of paint as a
product of interest by the Environment
Minister three years ago and the
continued listing of that product that
actually brought industry’s focus to
dealing with this issue,” Gomez said.
“So I think in one aspect, the Product
Stewardship Act has worked. The stick
did work but it also provides a space
in which industry has the opportunity
36
to do things on a voluntary basis and
if that fails, there are further ways to
address the scheme.”
Eligible products include interior
and exterior architectural paint – both
water and solvent-based, deck coatings
and floor paints, primers, undercoats
and sealers, stains and shellacs,
varnishes and urethanes as well as
wood components.
“And importantly, packaging. We
think that anywhere between 25 and
30% of the volume we collect will be
steel and plastic packaging,” Gomez
said.
A key aspect of the scheme is the
funding model. Gomez acknowledged
that people may potentially feel
negatively about having to pay a levy
for their paint, thinking that they do
not actually have any waste paint.
“But one of the benefits of the
model is that it’s transparent and it’s
hypothecated,” Gomez said.
“So I pay 15 cents and I know that
15 cents is going to go back to an
independent, not-for-profit company
whose purpose is to collect and treat
and safely dispose of the waste. It
won’t get absorbed into someone’s
profit margin, it won’t get discounted
away when dealing with a large retailer
out there.”
Another achievement that has come
from a collaborative effort across
industry and government is that
Paintback has a nationally consistent
framework.
“What I’ve seen around the country
is, getting COAG to move to a
consistent model [goes] at a glacial
pace generally. In a space of 12
months, we have gotten the support
of all states and territories to get the
necessary amendments in place so that
trade painters can use the same system
as household painters. I take my hat
off to the government. If we couldn’t
achieve a nationally consistent scheme,
it would have been a real factor in
setting it up for failure,” Gomez said
“Australia and its business community
are not strong collaborators. So
product stewardship, particularly in the
voluntary space, is a very good example
of where companies and industry are
collaborating and it’s a very important
thing in generating value in and across
the economy,” she added.
In the months ahead, Paintback
will be working to get its brand out
there, with its logo on the labels of all
participating products. In 18 months,
Gomez expects 80% of the stock on
shelves to carry the Paintback brand.
While it is licensed only to companies
that are participating in the program,
the scheme is certainly not exclusive.
“The scheme isn’t closed. We’ll be
inviting and pursuing other importers
Launched on May 2, Paintback is a voluntary, industryled scheme that has support from all state and territory
governments. It will be administered by paint manufacturers and
funded by a waste levy of 15 cents per litre to the wholesale
prices of these types of paint, a levy authorised by the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission in October.
Paintback will be communicated
to households and DIY renovators as
well as, for the first time, commercial
painters. There is, after all, “pent up
demand” for the service when it comes
to commercial painters.
Gomez said there are some large
stockpiles of waste paint across the
country, noting that a 2013 trade
painter trial led to the collection of
approximately 130 tonnes of paint in
six months.
“In our communication, our objective
is to raise awareness, show people that
Paintback is the responsible way and
they can do it themselves,” Gomez said.
“Our strategy is to make Paintback
understood. We’ve got to make it easy,
to get a network of collection points out
there and when they’re at a collection
point, it’s an easy experience. We want
to make ourselves desirable and make
people part of it. We want to reaffirm
it by rewarding people and telling them
how well it’s working and ultimately,
we’d like to make it a habit.”
and manufacturers to join the scheme.
We think we currently have around
90-95% of the volume produced in
Australia,” Gomez said.
“And we look forward to building
a strong relationship with local
government in terms of developing that
[collection] footprint and helping local
governments in their goals in providing
the services to their communities
around managing waste.”
Looking to the future, Gomez told
delegates research and development was
a key part of the program and Paintback
will research new and effective ways to
deal with waste paint as well as move
these solutions up the waste hierarchy.
“We have appointed Humphries
Scientific to do a global search and
hopefully in the next couple of months
we’ll have a report back from them
on what the state of play is in terms
of waste paint treatment around the
globe. From there we will develop a
governance regime in order to facilitate
iw
our research efforts,” she said.
// Hazardous waste
Toxfree
destroys legacy waste
By Jacqueline Ong
A SMALL-SCALE trial is underway in
Victoria to determine if chemical wastes
stored in Melbourne for more than 15
years can be safely destroyed.
Until recently, there were no viable
or safe solutions for the treatment
and destruction of these chemical
wastes, mainly from the agricultural
and veterinary sectors, according to
Victorian EPA major projects manager
German Ferrando-Miguel.
“Fortunately, technology at waste
management facilities has since evolved
to now allow these chemical wastes to
be treated and destroyed safely,” he
said.
One such facility is Toxfree’s plant in
Narangba, Queensland. The company
will use Indirect Thermal Desorption
and its patented Plascon (Plasma Arc)
technologies to treat the waste.
“The waste undergoes a thermal
process to separate and condense the
organic components from the metals.
The metals are chemically immobilised
and disposed of at a regulated
waste licensed landfill. The organic
components are destroyed by Toxfree’s
Plascon technology,” Toxfree manager
– technical and environmental services,
north east Jonathan Fisher said.
In a nutshell, Plascon, a high
temperature
plasma
technology
developed by the CSIRO and Siddons
Ramset Limited is a hazardous waste
treatment process that is able to destroy
a wide range of pesticides.
The Plascon process, which was
further refined by SRL Plasma Limited,
produces a high temperature plasma arc
by ionising argon gas in a 150kW DC
discharge between a separate cathode
and anode. A mixture of waste liquids
and oxygen is injected radially into
the plasma at a specially designed
injection manifold. Here, the average
mixing temperature exceeds 3000°C
and destroys the molecules, converting
them into atoms and ions – or for the
discerning waste operator, a process
known as pyrolysis. The formation of
products such as dioxins is avoided
thanks to the use of pyrolising conditions
as well as rapid quenching where in the
latter, atoms and ions combine as nontoxic salts and gases that are tested
for conformance with environmental
guidelines prior to release. According
to Toxfree, the off-gas volumes from
Plascon are “extremely low” compared
to incineration processes, as are residual
ground level concentrations.
“The EPA selected Toxfree based on
its ability to undertake separation of the
metal-based pesticides from the organicbased pesticides and treat both wastes
effectively, using best practice, at one
Until recently, pesticides used
in agriculture to deter pests
like the Mediterranean Fruit
Fly could not be safely treated
or destroyed. (Source: Wiki
Commons)
location,” Fisher explained. “Toxfree
provided the EPA with a comprehensive
proposal which identified the technical,
financial, commercial and governance
capability of its operations. Using this
information, the EPA was able to make a
qualified assessment of Toxfree’s ability
to undertake this work.”
While it is still early days, Toxfree
expects the trial to provide sufficient
evidence to demonstrate that the
technology and techniques used are in
fact capable to safely treat and dispose
of complex chemical waste.
“Toxfree has started its first phase
of trials and preliminary lab results are
encouraging, as anticipated,” Fisher
said. Toxfree and Sterihealth, the other
company selected for the trial, have
been given half a tonne of waste to
treat and the EPA will oversee their
progress to ensure the trial is conducted
according to best practice methods. iw
www.hyva.com
Ÿ Tipping solutions
Ÿ Truck loader
cranes
Ÿ Hookloaders
Ÿ Skiploaders
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equipment
Hyva Pacific Pty Ltd
Ph: 1800 041 733
37
E-waste //
Solving the
privacy puzzle
THE Australian and New Zealand
Recycling Platform (ANZRP) firmly
believes that people want to do the
right thing and recycle their e-waste.
However, research it conducted
earlier this year revealed that 38% of
Australians are afraid to recycle e-waste
because of privacy concerns. How can
councils, businesses, and industry as a
whole better manage security risks and
educate the community about e-waste
recycling to alleviate their concerns?
In an attempt to solve the privacy
puzzle, ANZRP hosted a panel
discussion in May to analyse Australia’s
current cyber security environment,
what companies’ responsibilities are,
and how to adapt to fears around data
privacy to lift the rate of recycling.
Rob Livingstone, advisor at Rob
Livingstone Advisory acknowledged
that there were quite a few unknowns
about the digital world and even
if organisations had compliance
requirements, they still struggled with
the issue of privacy in the context of
risk.
“So from my point of view, they all
generally want to do something; do
the right thing, protect the client’s
information and the intellectual
property. But how best to do it is really
the challenge,” he said.
To make matters worse, software
company Nuix’s vice president,
eDiscovery, Angela Bunting believes
Australia simply does not “do security
in-depth enough”.
“Security is a journey and a culture, so
educating people inside your business
to be security aware is paramount. If
someone sees something that’s a little
bit off, encourage or reward a culture
that reports this in a positive way so
ANZRP invited experts on privacy to discuss data concerns, which continue to be one of the
biggest barriers to recycling e-waste. (L-R: ANZRP CEO Carmel Dolllison, Nuix vice president,
eDiscovery Angela Bunting, EY partner, digital law Alec Christie, Rob Livingston Advisory
advisor Rob Livingstone and MYOB API evangelist and developer relations Keran McKenzie)
that you have extra ears and eyes on
the ground within your organisation
watching for that data because as an IT
team, you can’t be across everything,”
Bunting said.
“Hackers are particularly lazy. Insider
threat people generally are pretty lazy
unless they have a particular beef with
your company. So security in depth is
a very good place to start,” she added.
While businesses can play a part in
ensuring their data is protected, when
it comes to the community, ANZRP CEO
Carmel Dollison said there was a need
to get the message out there that it
is the consumer’s responsibility to
manage their data.
“The more we get this message out
there, the more people will manage their
data and the more product we will get
in for recycling.“ Dollison said, adding
that retailers could play a big role in
sending the right message because it is
when people are buying a new product
that they tune in and listen.
Perhaps the community also needs a
bigger push or a clearer message so they
take ownership of their data because
there is no lack of means to do so.
“You can delete your data and
while we don’t endorse any particular
product, there are a lot of products. Do
your research, go to your manufacturer
and find a way to get your data off that
device,” Dollison said.
“Our focus on running this forum is
to get out there, very loudly and clearly,
that you can remove your data. It’s
easy to do. That responsibility is yours
[the consumer]. We will continue the
education drive and push for there to
be a more consolidated and replicated
communication process around the
iw
scheme.”
‘Your recycling sorting solution’
For sales, service and hire
please contact us at:
25 Hanwell Way,
Bassendean, WA 6054
T: 08 9279 2000
www.tehmargroup.com
TEHMAR
GROUP
‘because service counts’
38
// Safety
Safety, Volvo Truck’s
guiding light
By Jacqueline Ong
FOR Volvo Trucks, safety is one of its
core values and its founding fathers
had, in the 1920s, “made it very clear”
that improvements should always focus
on safety. And it appears Volvo is
putting its money where its mouth is.
When it comes to education, whether
it’s teaching the community about
contamination or illegal dumping, the
task more often than not falls to the
council or waste contractor. But Volvo
wants to play a key role in teaching
children how to behave around the
waste trucks that go by their houses
weekly.
“The way we work today is safer,
with the high vis clothing, councils
and large operators always being
mindful of safety in and around our
products... but it is contingent on
manufacturers like us to play a part too.
We need to do the best we can with our
mechanical machines to help with the
human side of the business and keep
everyone safe,” Volvo Trucks Australia
vice president Mitch Peden told Inside
Waste, adding that while systems and
machines have improved, what was
sorely lacking was the education piece
for communities.
Thus, together with its business
partner Toxfree, Volvo Trucks launched
‘Stop Look Wave’ at the Melbourne
Truck Show in April to educate children
in primary school about waste trucks,
their jobs, and how to interact with
them.
“We are doing all we can to put the
word out there to educate children
about the importance of visually seeing
the driver and making sure the driver
sees them. We’re also teaching children
the angles – how to spot the driver in
the mirrors and where the driver can
and cannot see them,” Peden said.
“At the truck show, Toxfree helped
us launch the program at one of the
primary schools in Melbourne and we
also had a launch day at the show
where we brought the children in and
demonstrated the education process.
“Essentially, we are teaching them to
STOP when the truck is around, LOOK
both ways, and WAVE to the driver to
get his attention and when the driver
waves back, they know the driver can
see and interact safely with them.
“There’s also a job to be done by
operators to communicate this program
to drivers so they know what to do
when kids wave at them. Toxfree, as an
example, is training its 720 odd drivers
in this process to close the loop.”
Sounds easy enough but this could
be that little bit that’s needed to
prevent fatalities.
According to global research, some
500 children die every day in traffic
accidents although the company
acknowledged that the statistics in
Australia were “significantly lower”,
with the country being ranked the
13th safest country internationally for
the number of road deaths per 10,000
vehicles.
“That said, the challenges are the
same and we don’t want to bang our
chests about core values and not live
up to them. When we talk about safety,
environmental care, and innovation, we
want to have a demonstrated ability to
follow-up with what we’re promoting,”
Peden said.
The ‘Stop Look Wave’ tool kit is
available for free to any school,
childcare centre or transport company
interested in “stepping up” in the
safety space.
Volvo Trucks is teaching children to stop, look, and wave when they see a waste truck.
(Picture credit: Volvo Trucks)
A trucking good effort
But Volvo has not stopped at the safety
campaign. It is doing what it does
best – manufacturing safer trucks. Enter
the FE Dual Control, a truck designed
specifically for the waste sector.
With a wider windshield, lower side
windows and extra side mirrors, the
FE Dual Control offers better visibility
from the cab, an essential feature for
waste trucks operating in dense, urban
environments.
Additionally, the company has
made Forward Collision Warning with
Emergency Braking standard on its 6x4
Rear Air Suspension model.
“When the truck is moving up to a
vehicle in front of it that is stationary
or moving slowly, it will give an audible
and flashing warning inside the cab to
warn the driver. But once it gets to a
point where the collision is imminent,
the truck will take over and engage the
brakes,” Peden explained.
“Further to that, we’ve designed the
dual steering so it’s a lot leaner and
tidier than our previous generation
truck. It’s a lot more ergonomically
friendly for the driver with more space
in the cabin. There’s also more space
for waste industry body builders to put
The new FE Dual Control offers greater visibility. (Picture credit: Volvo Trucks)
their switches and things in to keep the
cabin less cluttered. We want the driver
to have a nice, clean environment so
they can focus on the road ahead and
what they should be doing instead of
the clutter around the cabin.”
Having worked extensively with its
customers of the new model, Volvo
Trucks also took their feedback on
board and included new features such
as a rear air suspension system and
the Euro 6 engine – now mandatory
in Europe – that boasts the cleanest
emissions across the board.
“One big improvement we’ve made is
to add the rear air suspension system,
which we didn’t have on our trucks
previously. It was the one thing the
waste sector said was needed badly if
we wanted to compete with the other
major manufacturers,” Peden said.
“The system allows the driver to
more accurately monitor the weight
of the payload and what’s going into
the truck. It helps with the driveability
and traction of the truck and also
allows the driver to manage the weight
of materials going into the truck and
optimise payloads as opposed to
estimating if the truck is full or not.”
The FE Dual Control is now available
iw
in Australia.
39
Events: WasteNSW 2016 //
Rawtec’s Mark Rawson
details SA’s disaster
waste scoping study.
More on page 34.
Cr. Bob Pynsent, Mayor of Cessnock
City Council opens WMAA’s inaugural
WasteNSW conference.
All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy.
WMAA tackles
natural disasters
THIS year, the Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) kicked off the
conference season with its inaugural WasteNSW 2016. Held at the picturesque
Hunter Valley in NSW, the conference focussed on natural disasters and risk
management. Because a picture paints a thousand words, here’s what went down
at the event.
Former Premier of
Queensland Anna Bligh
headlined WasteNSW 2016.
All images courtesy of WMAA.
Environment News & Networking
twitter.com/BEN_EnviroNews
WASTE INDUSTRY NEWS: UPCOMING FEATURES
August
• Australasian Waste and Recycling Expo – as principal
media partner, Inside Waste will keep you up-to-date
on all AWRE related news and events.
• Bonus Inside Waste magazine distribution at AWRE!
• Information Systems – solutions to build better price points.
• Bins and Bags – one size doesnt fit all!
October
• Waste Transportation – our annual popular trucks and trailers review.
Contact Alastair to secure your promotional space today!
E: alastair.bryers@aspermont.com
T: +61 431 730 886
SUBSCRIBE online before EOF Y increase!
visit: www.ben.global.com/subscribe
Take a digital subscription and get instant access to special reports and reviews, research, opinions and resources.
Unlimited access to BEN-Global.com
news and features.
Two weekly newsletters (Monday BEN
Business, Tuesday BEN Waste).
Contact us for more information T: +61 2 9267 1166
40
Friday WME Features weekly wrap.
Digital editions of Inside Waste.
E: sydney@aspermont.com
// Events: Waste 2016
Spotted at
Waste 2016
AND of course, it was a big one for the Impact Environmental team as Waste 2016
(or “the Coffs conference”) turned 20. This year, a record number of attendees –
575 – made their way to Coffs Harbour, representing more than 100 councils and
170 local, national, and international companies.
All images courtesy of Impact Environmental.
More than 500 delegates
attended Waste2016.
A high profile panel discusses
how to bring EfW to fruition.
NSW EPA director of waste and
resource recovery Steve Beaman
delivering his keynote address.
Compost rocks!
$1335 was donated to OzHarvest this
year, comprising $1000 from Impact
Environmental and $335 from Envirocom.
The Coffs conference is well known for its themed dinners and this year was no
different. Dressed to impressed, wasties certainly met the 2016 brief: The Great Gatsby.
41
Electric E Series Material Handlers (fixed or mobile)
Models: MH3022, MH3024,
M325D MH, M325D LMH, MH3037,
MH3049, MH3059 385C MH
Boom combination: Extended
range of boom and sticks available
Maximum reach: 11, 12.4, 14.3,
15.9, 16, 19.3, 21.8 metres
Cabin type: STD Cab with Falling
Object Guard Structure (FOGS);
meets ISO 10262.
Engine: C6.6, C7, C7.1, C9, C18
Travel speed: 18-25km/h
Number of models: 9
Base price: P.O.A
More: www.cat.com/en_AU/products/new/equipment/
material-handlers.html or 03 9953 9333 or 1800 010 808
Feature: reduce operating costs
by more than 50%
Boom combination: from 9-35m
Maximum reach: from 9-35m
Cabin type: elevating cabin
providing operator with eye level
of 5.8m on standard machine
Engine: electric
Travel speed: dependent on
model
Number of models: 30-plus
Base price: from $300,000,
subject to final specification
More: www.sennebogen.com.au or 1300 367 554
Sennebogen
Cat Material Handlers
E Series Diesel Powered Material Handlers (mobile)
Stationary Mount Material Handler Loaders
Boom combination: from 9-35m
Maximum reach: from 9m-35m
Cabin type: elevating cabin
providing operator with eye level
of 5.8m on standard machine
Engine: Cummins Diesel
Travel speed: 20km/hr (can vary
dependent on model)
Number of models: 30-plus
More: www.sennebogen.com.au
or 1300 367 554
Boom combination: from 7m
Maximum reach: from 7-12m
Cabin type: fixed cabin
Engine: electric
Number of models: 7
More: www.rotobec.com or
1300 367 554
Rotobec
Sennebogen
Caterpillar
Product profile: material handlers //
THIS IS WHAT 50 MILLION TYRES LOOK LIKE.
If you want your old tyres recycled in the most environmentally sustainable way,
only deal with Tyre Stewardship Accredited suppliers. Look for this logo or go to
our website to find out who they are. www.tyrestewardship.org.au
Volume based on Equivalent Passenger Units (EPUs). An EPU is standard passenger car tyre. Full EPU Ratio Tables available at www.tyrestewardship.org.au
*
42
TRP TSA0007
THAT’S HOW MANY ARE DISCARDED IN AUSTRALIA EACH YEAR.*
THE jcb WASTEMASTER RANGE
More
ways to
Master
waste
The jcb Wastemaster range now offers a wide range
of models purpose built for waste and recycling
operations, which means that your choice of machine
is now greater than ever.
What’s more, with over 10,000 jcb machines working
in waste worldwide, we recognise the importance of
round the clock service.
aUstraLIa’s oNLy aUtHorIseD JCB DIstrIBUtor
1300 522 232
jcbcea.com.au
Product profile: material handlers, telehandlers and skid steers //
Operating weight: 15-67t
Lifting height: from 7.5-20m
maximum, depending on
model
Maximum reach: 7.5-21m,
depending on model
Cabin type: hydraulically
elevates to allow maximum
operator viewing
Engine: Deutz
Travel speed: Up to 20km/h
Number of models:
7 models, all available in
electric or diesel, all available fixed or mobile
Base price: $280,000+
More: CSS Equipment – www.cssequipment.com.au or 1800 644 978
Seram Group (CSS Equipment)
Equilibrium Cranes & Material Handlers
Boom combination:
equilibrium crane and boom/
stick type
Maximum reach: up to 40m
Cabin type: fixed or
adjustable (depending on
application)
Engine: electric only
Travel speed: fixed plant
Number of models:
10 models from the S20 to
S250 models, for indoor material handlers to massive scrap yards
and portside equilibrium cranes with reaches to 40m.
Base price: P.O.A
More: www.seramgroup.com and www.cssequipment.com.au or
1800 644 978
TH414C Telehandler
SSL and MTL Loaders
Dimensions: 6575 x 2430 x
2588mm
Operating weight: 10,854kg
Lifting height: 13,700mm
Maximum forward reach:
9225mm
Lifting capacity: 3700kg
Turning radius: 3805mm
Engine: Cat C4.4 DITAAC
Travel speed: 30km/h
Number of models: 6
Base price: P.O.A
More: http://www.cat.com/en_AU/products/new/equipment/
telehandlers.html or 03 9953 9333 or 1800 010 808
Models: 216, 226, 232, 236, 242,
246, 262, 247, 257, 277, 287,299
Dimensions: various dimensions
Horsepower: 48-110 HP
Operating weight: 2620-5219kg
Operating capacity: 635-1928kg
Tipping load: 1290-3855kg
Bucket breakout force: to
3426kg
Engine: C2.2 to C3.8
Base price: P.O.A
More: http://www.cat.com/
en_US/products/new/equipment/
skid-steer-loaders.html or 03 9953 9333 or 1800 010 808
Caterpillar
Caterpillar
Terex Fuchs
MHL Series Materials Handlers
SLOW SPEED SHREDDERS – TDS820
HORIZONTAL GRINDERS – TBG650
MEDIUM SPEED SHREDDERS – TDSV20
• Double Shaft Shredder
• Reversible Independent Shafts
• High Throughput with up to 1200HP
• Advanced Metal Detection System
• Twin Shaft Vecoplan Chamber
• Primary or Secondary Shredding in One Machine
RECYCLING SCREENS – TRS550
TROMMELS – TTS620
WINDROW TURNERS – TWT500
• Robust 3 way split
• Spaleck 3D Screenbox
• Unrivalled Production Rates & Flexibility
• Advanced Material Processing Control
• Turning Capacity up to 2800M3
• 30% Space Saving
MWS ENVIRONMENTAL are exclusive authorised distributors of Terex® Environmental Equipment and provide solutions
for all wood processing, biomass and recycling equipment needs. To learn more CALL 1800 777 300.
EMAIL info@mwsenvironmental.com.au www.mwsenvironmental.com.au
44
Never Settle.
Handle more
Liebherr has been precision-engineering efficient technologies for decades, and
our LH 40 material handler is no exception. It features an energy recovery cylinder
that reduces fuel consumption by up to 25 percent and promotes faster cycles for
greater handling capacity. And our handlers are industry-proven to deliver long life.
“We haven’t compromised on anything; why should you?”
Liebherr-Australia Pty. Ltd.
1-15 James Erskine Drive
Erskine Park, NSW 2759
Phone: (02) 9852 1800
E-mail: em-sales.las@liebherr.com
www.facebook.com/LiebherrConstruction
www.liebherr.com.au
46
Cat Wheel Loaders
Max engine output: 26-70hp
Max power at: 25-2800rpm
Max torque at: 2200rpm
Breakout force: 2800kg
Tipping load: 3200kg
Bucket capacity: 0.2-2.00
cu.m
Operating weight: 18505000kg
Engine: Kubota and Water
Cooled Deutz
Base price: P.O.A
More: www.schaffer-loaders.com.au or 1300 88 21 61
Models: 906H2, 907H2, 908H2,
910K, 914K, 924K, 924K (LRC), 930K,
930K (LRC), 938K, 938K (LRC), 950,
GC950H, 950K, 950M, 962H, IT62H,
962K, 962M, 966H, 966K, 966M,
966M, XE, 972H, 972K, 972M, 972M,
XE980H, 980K, 980M, 982M, 986H, 988H, 988K, 990K, 993K, 994H
Max engine output: 75-1577HP
Max power at: 55-1176kW
Max torque at: 2500 rpm for smallest and 1600 rpm for the largest
machine
Breakout force: from 51-1,133KN (bucket)
Tipping load: from 3159-102,998kg
Bucket capacity: 0.75-32cu.m
Operating weight: from 5269-205,728Kg
Engine: C1.8 to 3516B
Base price: P.O.A
More: http://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/wheelloaders.html or 03 9953 9333 or 1800 010 808
Caterpillar
Schaffer
Volvo L110F
Max engine output: 180Kw
Max power at: 1800rpm
Breakout force: 16,723
Tipping load: 12,140 (static
at full turn)
Bucket capacity: 3.5cu.m
Operating weight: 19,200
Engine: Volvo D7E
Base price: P.O.A
More: www.cjd.com.au or
1300 139 804
Max engine output: 170kW
Tipping load: 11,270 (static at
full turn)
Engine: Volvo D7E
Base price: P.O.A
1300 139 804
CJD Equipment Pty Ltd
Volvo L120F
Volvo L70F
Tipping load: 9570 (static at
full turn)
Engine: Volvo D6E
Base price: P.O.A
1300 139 804
Breakout force: 9728
full turn)
Engine: Volvo D6E
Base price: P.O.A
1300 139 804
Volvo L90F
Volvo L60F
Volvo L50F
full turn)
Engine: Volvo D6E
Base price: P.O.A
1300 139 804
full turn)
Operating weight: 9370
Engine: Volvo D5D
Base price: P.O.A
1300 139 804
Schaffer Loaders
Product profile: wheel loaders //
// Wasted Space
Waste to energy
or wasted energy?
JUST when we thought that waste to
energy (WtE) was gaining some traction
in Australia and the failures of the
past (think: the 2004 SWERF project
in Wollongong) were but a distant
memory, the discussions seemed to
have taken a nosedive.
Over the last three years, we’ve heard
great news – third WA waste to energy
facility receives EPA’s tick of approval!
Phoenix Energy signs 20-year waste
supply agreement! Perth councils signoff on $400 million WtE contract! – as
governments scrambled to put together
policies and statements to provide
some direction to WtE proponents.
And then, there was silence. Up
until last month that is, when Phoenix
Energy broke up with its contractor on
its $380 million Kwinana WtE project
a month before the project’s May
deadline.
The technology is available, proven
and widely used across the world.
Most state governments have policy
statements and guidelines, and in case
you haven’t heard, our landfill space is
decreasing.
So what is the problem? Why is
Australia moving like a blazed koala?
The usual excuses reasons come up
when WtE is discussed at conferences.
“It’s not in our culture”, “We cannot
get community support”, “We need to
protect existing infrastructure,” “Size
matters”...
Valid reasons of course but let’s look
at how relevant they are today.
“We cannot get community support”
– a recent social research study
undertaken in NSW (more on page 26)
showed that 18% of people surveyed
didn’t mind having a WtE plant in their
suburb.
So 18% said they were unsure too
but only 12% said they were opposed
to a plant. And at a focus group, 22
out of 29 attendees strongly supported
Sydney being home to a WtE facility.
Guess how many people strongly
opposed this? One. Yep. Just one
person. Interestingly, people were
concerned about how a WtE plant
worked and not where it would be
sited.
“Size matters” – Does it? We get
that it’s a huge capital cost but if
size is the only way to get return on
investment, we’re screwed. Given
Australia’s geography and demography,
we will never be able to build a plant.
Not if we simply go with the massive
facilities found in Europe. What about
integration of technologies and/or
DIARY
August 10-11
Australasian Waste & Recycling Expo
Sydney Showground
The Australasian Waste & Recycling
Expo returns to Sydney in 2016,
bringing together the industry to
generate quality sales leads, discover
the latest trends, showcase innovation,
network with key waste and recycling
decision makers from industry and
government, and attend high quality
practical seminars and workshops.
www.awre.com.au
September 22-23
Waste South Australia Conference
2016
Stamford Grand Adelaide Hotel, SA
The Waste Management Association
of Australia conference will focus on
the new state waste strategy and
regulatory reform.
It will hear from a number of
speakers who will cover investment,
infrastructure, innovation and
learnings in waste management,
recycling, resource recovery, and
remanufacturing.
http://www.wastesa.com.au
October 4-5
Waste Expo
Melbourne Convention & Exhibition
Centre
Now in its fourth year, Waste Expo
presents an opportunity to engage
with professionals from sectors such
as government, corporate, facilities
including sporting, hospitality and
entertainment venues, transport
and healthcare, for whom waste
management, recycling and sustainable
solutions are increasingly vital.
www.wasteexpo.com.au/
October 25-27
National Conference Energy from
Waste 2016
Novotel Sydney, Brighton Beach, NSW
The Waste Management Association of
Australia’s EfW national conference will
showcase a two-day program filled with
informative sessions and networking
opportunities including keynote
presentations, both international and
Australian speakers, concurrent technical
and case study sessions, a welcome
function, and conference dinner.
http://www.energyfromwaste.com.au
facilities? The “go hard or go home”
mentality doesn’t really work in this
instance. Oh and here’s a thought,
maybe let’s start pricing our services
accurately?
“We need to protect existing
infrastructure” – now this is fair of
course and while the waste hierarchy
needs to be followed, enforcing it is a
potential issue. Hence the integration
– could we not tailor solutions that
include a range of technologies
(both existing and not) for local
communities?
“It’s not in our culture” - this is just
silly. Is it in our culture to use plastic,
polystyrene, etc?
Wasted Space is not saying that WtE
is the answer to all our waste woes, nor
are we trivialising the real challenges
in progressing with WtE.
But perhaps it’s time we re-evaluate
the reasons for not moving forward
iw
with this.
EnviroCom Australia
EDUCATION
TRAINING
RESEARCH
EnviroCom Australia® is an experienced
environmental consultancy specialising in
education, research and training services to
the public and private sectors since 1998.
Providing integrated services that link:
 education program planning and delivery;
 community and business research;
 curriculum resource development;
 community behaviour change programs;
 corporate and business training;
 waste stream assessment and reporting;
 waste management planning.
www.envirocom.com.au
Brisbane
P: (07) 3457 2400
New South Wales
P: (02) 9724 3889
Sunshine Coast
P: (07) 5494 5100
Victoria
P: (03) 9703 5288
47
IT TAKES THE BEST COMPONENTRY
FROM AROUND THE WORLD TO PRODUCE
AUSTRALIA’S FAVOURITE TRUCKS.
ISUZU’S ADVANCED TURBOCHARGED DIRECT
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here - Aspermont

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