City of Newcastle has awarded a contract for an advanced organics recycling facility as part of a 25-year commitment to revolutionise food and garden waste treatment.
\nThe project at the Summerhill Waste Management Centre by Barpa Pty Ltd, in partnership with a company that has designed 120 composting facilities worldwide, will over 25 years:<\/p>\n
Onsite recycling of garden organics will begin at Summerhill in a fully enclosed facility in 2022 before food organics are added four years later, following comprehensive community consultation.
\nNewcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said the project would generate major environmental and financial benefits for the city and community.
\n\u201cWith food and garden organics accounting for around 30 per cent of waste streams, we are embarking on the largest waste commitment ever made by the City: to divert almost a million tonnes of organic material from landfill,\u201d the Lord Mayor said.
\n\u201cWhen properly processed into compost, recycled organics can be sold as fertiliser that improves soil quality and productivity, displacing artificial chemical-based fertilisers on crops, sporting fields and in public and household gardens.
\n\u201cInitially diverting around 20,000 tonnes of garden organics from landfill each year, the Summerhill facility will grow in capacity to process around 50,000 tonnes annually.
\n\u201cIt will see us begin processing all food organics material instead of continuing to landfill them at a prohibitive cost. After paying more than $230 million in waste levies over the past 12 years, the organics recycling facility will save ratepayers $32.5 million over the next 25 years.
\n\u201cWe intend to start processing food organics in 2026 following extensive planning and community engagement. In the meantime, work is continuing on the development of a program to roll out subsidised worm farms and community compost bins across the city.\u201d
\nBarpa\u2019s proposal for a fully enclosed recycling facility, which will be the first of its kind in the Hunter, was recommended in favour of three rival bids.
\nElimination of odours through longer composting times and superior ventilation technology and systems, together with bid partnerWaste Treatment Technologies\u2019 expertise in breaking down biodegradable material and converting waste to compliant, marketable compost, gave Barpa the edge.
\nThe organics recycling facility will lower carbon emissions by ending the costly transfer of garden organics to the Upper Hunter in up to 45 return truck journeys of 173km a week.
\nManager of the City\u2019s Waste Services Troy Uren said higher regulatory standards loomed large over such traditional waste practices and that the project also stood to save ratepayers many millions of dollars more in deferred landfill expansion, in addition to $24 million in operational costs, over a quarter of a century.
\n“Garden organics are currently trucked from Summerhill to a Ravensworth site that can\u2019t process food organics, and at significant cost to the ratepayer in what was only ever intended to be a temporary solution,\u201d he said.
\nBackground:<\/p>\n
City of Newcastle has awarded a contract for an advanced organics recycling facility as part of a 25-year commitment to revolutionise food and garden waste treatment. The project at the Summerhill Waste Management Centre by Barpa Pty Ltd, in partnership with a company that has designed 120 composting facilities worldwide, will over 25 years: Divert … Continue reading “City awards contract for cutting-edge recycling facility”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newcastle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}