Bold New Plan To Shift Waste From Landfill

Sending all waste to landfill at the Wyndham Refuse Disposal Facility (RDF) will soon be a thing of the past, following the adoption of a forward-thinking plan that maps out the future of the Werribee tip.

The Wyndham RDF Strategic Plan, adopted by Councillors at last night’s Council Meeting, outlines six goals for the coming six years, in a bid to transition from a traditional landfill to a resource and energy recovery operation, with the only waste going to landfill being that which is left over following the recovery of resources.

Wyndham City Mayor, Cr Mia Shaw, said the plan was needed due to the projected increase of waste going into landfill in the next 25 years.

“We know that the level of waste generated in Melbourne will increase from the current 940,000 tonnes a year to 1.55 million over the next two decades. In Wyndham alone, we’re facing an increase from the current 103,000 tonnes to more than 180,000 tonnes each year,” Cr Shaw said.

“At Wyndham City, we have long been an active advocate for better waste management in Victoria. As the only remaining Council in Melbourne to still control a commercial landfill, we are in a unique position to provide best practice waste collection, treatment and disposal, while working with other Councils to divert waste from landfill.”

Cr Shaw said part of the plan would see the development of a pre-sort facility at the RDF in Werribee.

“This facility would ensure that all incoming waste would be subject to a sorting operation that recovers valuable resources, such as organics.”

“These organics would then be processed by anaerobic digestion, to produce methane to generate energy, and organic materials that could be used in landfill rehabilitation works.”

“Another goal in outlined in this plan is the recovery of energy from residual waste. While we’re still working out the finer details of this plan – there are two options currently before us.”

“The first would see residual waste from the recovery stage provided to an external third-party user as solid residual fuel, while the second is around the investigation of the potential for recovering energy from waste.”

“It’s important to have a holistic plan in place, which is why we’re also looking to integrate kerbside collection and waste treatment and disposal services.”

“This would be in the form of a whole new kerbside food and garden organics service, to tie in with the development of an anaerobic processing facility. We are also looking at the potential to process kerbside recyclables in the pre-sort/mechanical treatment section of the RDF.”

Cr Shaw said that while the Council had a strong plan in place, support was still needed from the State and Federal Governments.

“We will continue to advocate to other tiers of government to develop national and state resource recovery targets, and to reform levies so they are attached to the waste at the point of generation – not the point of disposal.”

“We’re also calling for the introduction of a waste-tracking system for all types of waste, in a bid to support behaviour change in communities, and to increase the levy and re-invest the levy to support activities that recover materials and resources from the residual waste stream.”

To read the Wyndham RDF Strategic Plan visit www.wyndham.vic.gov.au