SMRC explores FOGO, energy recovery
Originally published by Brenton Mann, Resource Recovery.biz News
West Australia’s Southern Metropolitan Regional Council (SMRC) has released it’s draft resource recovery strategy.
As part of the plan the SMRC is considering FOGO collection and alternative waste technology to increase landfill diversion.
SMRC has released an updated draft of its Strategic Waste Management Plan where it outlines its plans to implement a three-bin collection service and also its waste-to-energy recovery options.
The regional population is approximately 258,687 and covers Western Australian municipalities Cockburn, East Fremantle, Fremantle, Kwinana and Melville.
Industry experts MRA Consulting Group were commissioned by SMRC to partner on the strategy and offer its recommendations.
“MRA recommends that SMRC implements a two-stage model, which combines the resource recovery achievements of a three bin FOGO system, with the higher diversion rates to WtE when commercially viable.”
The Regional Resource Recovery Centre already has organics processing infrastructure in operation, but may look to alternate technology for future FOGO processing.
The SMRC is also considering using waste-to-energy technology to process residual waste material, but only if a proven WtE technology achieves commercial backing and is viable in the long term.
Other areas for consideration under the Strategic Waste Management Plan are:
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Full review of waste collection and management contracts,
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Alignment between councils and joint contract cooperation,
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Fortnightly co-mingled recycling collection and roll-out of new 360L bins, and
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Greater emphasis on outsourcing operational service and tendering to the private sector.
The SMRC is also seeking urgent clarification from the State Government on which WtE policy interpretation will apply to the current proposals.
