Port Stephens , Australia

The 100 tonnes per day Bedminster facility at Port Stephens in Australia has been in commercial operation since July 1998, and processes all of the kerbside waste collected in the local region of about 57,000 inhabitants. Commercially, the project is based on a 20-year contract with the local government agency to process the region’s kerbside waste, with a guaranteed minimum quantity or equivalent payment.

Operational: 1999
Amount MSW, tpd: 100
Amount Biosolids, tpd: 50
Number of Composting Drums: 2

The facility was built by BBA, who also operate the plant and market the organic processing service and the compost product. This coastal region, about 150 km north of Sydney, is popular with tourists and at holiday times the population can increase by 30% or more, which increases the inputs to the Bedminster plant by a like amount.

Sydney Olympic Games 2000
During September 2000 the PSWMG facility received waste from the Sydney Olympic live sites. The bulk of the Olympic material delivered to the PSWMG Bedminster facility was received from the Olympic live site venues located around the Sydney city centre.

One of the key issues for waste management at the live sites was the inability to stringently control the disposal of waste, that impacts on the level of contamination by non-compostable materials.

The initial expectation was that these sites would produce a waste stream with a higher degree of inorganic and non-compostable material than material produced at the Olympic village. This level of contamination was still readily managed by the Bedminster process and compared favourably with the typical MSW stream currently being accepted by the PSWMG facility. For this reason PSWMG was confident that a diversion rate of approximately 70% away from landfill, for the Olympic waste, could be achieved. Approximately 485 tonnes of waste was delivered to the Raymond Terrace facility for the period September 20th through October 1 2000. The initial deliveries consisted of a high degree of site set-up waste (approximately 60%), the majority of which was inorganic and non biodegradable.

Subsequent deliveries consisted of a relatively clean organic waste stream, however, for transportation purposes the waste was heavily wrapped in plastic. Both the site set-up waste and the transportation wrapping had a negative impact on the diversion rate achieved. The table referenced above outlines the actual results from using the PSWMG Bedminster facility to process the Olympic live site waste. The inorganic non-processible waste stream refers to that waste which was pre-sorted on the tipping floor and deemed to be unacceptable for the Bedminster system to process. This predominantly related to the site set-up waste received in the initial deliveries.

The inorganic processible waste refers to that waste that is placed through the Bedminster system and is separated after digestion from the rough compost by the primary trommel screen and the waste that is separated from the mature compost by the final screen. This was mainly related to the heavy plastic wrapping used to transport the waste and other plastics/glass etc within the actual waste stream. In respect to the gross tonnage of the Olympic waste received PSWMG managed to achieve a 60% diversion from landfill. By removing the site set-up waste from the gross tonnage received equation the diversion from landfill actually rises to approximately 66.5%. Considering the quantity of transport wrapping used this is an acceptable result. All of the compost at the PSWMG facility is batch tested before it is released for re-vegetation use around the PSWMG site or for off-site sales. Approximately 91 tonnes of the Olympic waste related compost has been used for site re-vegetation and the other 200 tonnes has been sold as part of a 2,000 tonne order for use on three local golf courses.

PSWMG is very comfortable with the overall result that was achieved with the Olympic waste.

• • All aspects from delivery through to processing ran smoothly
• • A satisfactory diversion from landfill percentage was achieved
• • All residuals disposed of in the PSWMG landfill were inert
• • The end product produced was of a high standard.

Bedminster would like to thank the Olympic Co-Ordination Authority for utilising the Bedminster technology as part of the Olympic waste management strategy.