ORGANICS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
Q
Week l y news updat es at www. i nsi dewast e. com. au
J AN/ FEB 2010


16
By Garth Lamb.
SHOALHAVEN City Council is only a
two-hour drive south of Sydney, but
its waste management challenges
are worlds apart from those of any
metropolitan council. With one landfill
to service 92,000 people spread across
4,660km
2
, it wages a constant battle
against the tyranny of distance when
it comes to collecting waste.
It is also battling to overcome
a push toward one-size-fits-all bin
configurations that dont really fit
its needs. While metro councils are
looking at three bin systems and AWTs,
Shoalhaven has taken a completely
different tack and its novel trial
suggests it could achieve some of
the best landfill diversion rates in
the country, without using high-tech
equipment.
Its 14-week Get to the Point
trial covered 720 homes in the small
coastal township of Greenwell Point.
Two bins were used, the first a wet
bin for all organic material, from lawn
clippings and leaves through to food
waste, dirty paper and even soiled
nappies. The second dry bin was
used for traditional recyclable material
(such as bottles, cans and paper) but,
interestingly, also for bags of residual
waste. Those rubbish bags were later
manually removed at the materials
recycling facility.
Its a whole different way of
thinking, said waste minimisation
officer Fiona Schreurs, with most
councils having spent years educating
residents about not putting bagged
material or rubbish into recycling bins.
But Shoalhavens headline result, an
80% diversion from landfill, suggests
its on to something.
It was absolutely stunning we
were just over the moon getting that
sort of diversion and you cant argue,
with those stats, that this is not
something to be looked at. It shouldnt
be discounted, said Schreurs.
Dry bins derive jobs
The NSW Department of Environment,
Climate Change and Water supports
councils moving to three bin systems,
but Shoalhaven was concerned about
transport implications: Having a third
bin means extra trucks on our roads,
and were quite a large LGA, so we were
looking at ways of reducing transport
costs and trying to be more efficient,
said Schreurs.
The council internally funded its
two-bin trial (and its home composting
rollout see the box below), without
aide from DECCW.
There are 10 waste depots in the
LGA, dotted along 114km of the
Princes Highway. Council runs 11
collection trucks, which each travel
about 51,000km per year. Recycling
trucks average one tonne collected per
20km travelled, while garbage trucks
do 1t/15km a far cry from a city run.
Each council area is different, so
we need to come up with solutions for
our areas and our communities, said
Schreurs. You cant just give a blanket
approach with the same bin service.
There have been some European
trials, notably in Norway, using a
single bin to collect colour coded
bags of different material, which are
later separated using optical sorting
technologies. But Schreurs describes
her councils approach as very low-
technology.
All that it requires is space, which
we have a lot of, and people.
Of the total 85.9 tonnes delivered to
the MRF from the weekly dry recycling
bin collection, 21 tonnes (24%) was
landfilled. An extra three workers were
placed on the picking line to manually
remove the bagged rubbish, which
waste management manager David
Hojem said worked well. The trial
did only cover 720 households, and
more manpower would be required if
it were rolled out to the full 50,000
homes. Still, Hojem points out manual
approaches are not only reliable, but
provide local employment.
The obvious concern with
co-collecting rubbish and recyclables
is contamination of recovered material,
and Hojem concedes, you do get a bit
of contamination, which sticks mainly
to paper the paper bales quality
wasnt as good, especially where over-
compaction in collection trucks caused
residual bags to split, or broken glass
cut them open.
If the paper was too badly
contaminated, it could possibly be
sent with other organic material to
be made into compost, although this
wasnt necessary during the trial.
Hojem claims that extra contamination
was not a problem at all with the
other material streams recovered for
recycling.
Wet bin experiments
Composting systems for organic
material were also extremely low
technology, with two processes
trialled on seven piles. The first set
used effective microorganisms (EM),
a biological spray supplied by VRM
to kick-start breakdown. Material was
covered using a very basic tarp.
The parallel system was based on
The initial feedstock looks problematic, however the final outputs after 25mm screening show a quality end product.
16
The best thing councils ever done
Shoalhaven City Council has set up a dedicated home composting program
with the potential to reduce the volume of household waste it collects by
30%. Rather than just being given free equipment, however, residents must
first complete 1.5 hours training on how to use the system. At the end of the
workshop, they get one of Source Separations benchtop kitchen bins and a
backyard composting unit.
The easiest thing to do would be just give them a bin, but 99% of those bins
would sit out in the backyard and not be used, so the training is integral in the
success, said waste minimisation officer Fiona Schreurs. Theres no point
training them and not giving them the resources, and theres no point giving
them the resources and not training them.
Really we need the community to help us [solve waste problems], and this is
a way of us saying wed like you to help us, but well give you the tools and
resources to do that.
Some 5,000 households were trained in stage one, and Schreurs said the
program has been very well received, with several messages along the lines
of its the best thing councils ever done. It has now rolled out another 1,500
systems.
The council was out to tender as Inside Waste went to print and unsure what
collection system might be rolled out in 2010. It was expected, however, that
households with home composting training would be able to pay less than
other residents by using a smaller bin.
Shoalhavens two bin results stunning
ComposTexs permeable membrane
covers and forced aeration. The
blowers were adjusted depending on
pile temperatures, coming on at 65C
and off at 55C. Hojem said there were
initially problems with the outside
of the pile drying out due to the
permeable cover, so in the end we
put some plastic tarps over it [leaving
some air gaps].
All piles were turned three times
throughout the three-month trial, with
litter manually picked out at various
points. A trommel screen removed
the final oversized material. Of the
total 67.6 tonnes delivered to the
composting area from the fortnightly
organics collection, only 8.8 tonnes
(13%) ended up in landfill.
There was no clear winner between
the two organic treatment systems:
Hojem sees advantages in both. Test
results showed all piles conformed
to AS4452 standards, although
available nitrogen was considered a
little low and there was some E.coli
contamination. Council was advised if
piles were left to mature longer six
months instead of three E.coli levels
would probably be more acceptable.
If we ran another trial and excluded
cat poo, dog poo and nappies, we
might get a different result, but
thats not the point we wanted to
include those difficult materials, said
Schreurs.
Left field trial sparks interest
Shoalhaven is part of the southern
councils group, stretching from
Wollongong to Bega, which is
considering regional waste options,
including the possibility of banding
together to build an AWT. But this trial
suggests high technology isnt the
only way to achieve high diversion in
regional areas.
The feedback weve got [from other
councils] is theyre interested to see
what were doing, theyre interested
to see the results, and I guess theyre
fascinated we would try something so
left field, said Schreurs, although the
feedback hasnt all been positive.
Some of the other councils have
told me that theres no way their
residents would be able to do that,
[but] I dont know that I believe that
our community did it.
She puts Shoalhavens success down
to an education program inviting
residents to come on a journey
with us We basically asked if
they would help us.
While many entered the trial with
trepidation, Schreurs said by the end,
they were asking can we keep this
we dont want to go back.
With plenty of regional councils able
to add up a similar space plus people
equation that seems to have worked
for Shoalhaven, there may soon be
more Australian communities begging
for a two-bin approach.
Week l y news updat es at www. i nsi dewast e. com. au Q
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
ORGANICS
17
Extensive community education was key to two-bin success.
LZ
The second dry
bin was used for
traditional recyclable
material but,
interestingly, also
for bags of residual
waste

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