Food and organics waste in landfill are significant greenhouse gas emitters.
Recognising the importance of the growing organics recycling sector, in 2021 the Federal Government launched a $171 million fund to take 3.4 million tonnes of food and organics waste out of landfill each year and return it to the soil.
Across Australia, Victoria has the highest level of food waste, with 2.4 million tonnes of waste each year, according to Sustainability Victoria. The State Government’s waste policy aims to divert 80 per cent of waste from landfill by 2030 and includes initiatives that seek to increase the reuse, repurpose, and recycling of materials such as Food Organics, Green Organics (FOGO) waste.
PARTNERS OF CHANGE
Resource recovery leader Repurpose It already plays a role in delivering on the state’s waste targets, with the company’s Epping base declared a site of strategic importance by the government.
In 2021, Repurpose It set out to revolutionise the FOGO recycling industry. The centrepiece is a 3000-square metre organics facility.
The company commissioned MECBIO to design and build an in- vessel organic waste composting facility, capable of processing FOGO into high- grade compost.
MECBIO is a full-service provider for the recovery of organic, construction and demolition and plastics waste. Its technologies cover a range of recycling solutions including aerobic bio- drying, anaerobic digestion or biogas production, air treatment and odour control systems, plastics recycling plants, mechanical pre-treatment and post treatment, waste sorting plants, and more.
MECBIO partners with global suppliers to assist Australia’s transition to a circular economy. Waste Treatment Technology (WTT) is its technology partner for building sustainable and state-of-the-art organic waste treatment facilities such as in-vessel composting. Based out of the Netherlands, WTT has designed and built more than 1509 organics waste processing facilities across the world.
THE SOLUTION
Dean Dowie, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of MECBIO, says the company was happy to assist in building an in-vessel composting (IVC) plant for Repurpose It.
The brief was for a facility that met volumetric and qualitative requirements and included aeration systems within tunnels and complete leachate management and odour control systems.
“IVC ensures that composting takes place in an enclosed environment, with accurate temperature control and monitoring,” Dean says. “Odour control, legislative licensing requirements, footprint (size of the plant), throughput and product quality are considered when determining if in-vessel composting is suitable.”
The composting process takes place in completely closed (concrete) vessels, so-called tunnels. Food organics is mixed with green organics, shredded, and composted in the tunnel for an intensive phase with temperatures of more than 55 degrees Celsius killing any harmful microbes.
After a further maturation period consisting of constant mixing and checks to ensure quality, the final compost is ready to be used as soil conditioner on farms, parks, and gardens.
The major advantages of composting in tunnels are the speed of the process as well as the ability to guarantee hygienisation and therefore the quality of the product while controlling odour.
The tunnels are individually controlled with forced aeration to process organic waste into compost. Each composting tunnel has its own aeration system, water and heating modules and is accompanied with the required instrumentation.
Process and odour control is optimal, resulting in homogenic pasteurisation and degradation of organics. The whole configuration is included into a skid for faster installation, easier transport to site and simplified commissioning.
The complete tunnel system is remotely actuated and controlled by a SCADA visualisation system. This allows site operators to set process parameters to be able to adapt to different waste streams and seasonal fluctuations.
Dean is hopeful that more projects such as this will be prioritised to meet recycling targets and objectives of processing source segregated wastes from communities across Australia.