ACT Resource Recovery Centre

To date the vast majority, if not all, waste to all skip bins has gone to landfill. This is a huge cost not only to the environment, but tipping fees are a major (and uncontrollable) proportion of the skip bin hire fee.

In response to the ACT Government's raising of landfill-tipping fees (more information here) to encourage a positive behavioural change toward landfill tipping, ACT Skip Hire established The ACT Resource Recovery Centre which opened in Hume late 2004.

AIM

The aim of this expansion and investment is to establish a large scale commercial waste reprocessing/recycling centre at Hume in close proximity to ACT NOWaste's Mugga Lane waste facility and its future Resource Recovery Estate.

The Centre is the first of its kind in the ACT region and provides facilities that significantly reduce the volume of waste currently going to landfill by as much as 80-90%.

The ACT Resource Recovery Centre accepts waste from a range of sources including the commercial waste management industry (eg skip bin and bobcat operators), the construction industry and demolition businesses. At present there is little scope for the reprocessing and reuse of this material as the critical infrastructure simply does not exist in the ACT.

HOW

The waste is handsorted for primary recycling and processed through specialised machinery trommels and a power screen to produce sorted raw materials suitable for reuse. The Centre is a catalyst for the introduction of new recycling businesses on a scale not previously seen here due to the lack of suitable reprocessing infrastructure.

This facility will be a key factor influencing the future direction of the waste management industry in the ACT and beyond. As the ACT Government, the Canberra community and the waste industry approaches the NOWaste by 2010 target, we will all need to adapt to new regime for managing this important issue.

Who benefits?
The Centre will have a significant impact on the entire ACT community in a number of respects:

The entire community has a vested interest (environmentally and economically) in the reduction of waste going to landfill. During the 2002/03 year approximately 207,000 tonnes of waste was deposited at ACT landfill sites (ACT NOWaste 2003 Progress Report ). While the industry tends to measure throughput in terms of cubic volume rather than weight, we nevertheless anticipate processing at least 100,000m3 of waste material through this facility producing an output of recyclable material in excess of 80%;
It offers unprecedented access to advanced reprocessing and recycling technologies not previously available in this region;
It aligns with and actively supports the ACT Government's NoWaste by 2010 policy commitment; and
It will be a catalyst for industry and employment growth.

Way ahead
The waste management industry generally operates along fundamentally simple lines. The issue of recycling introduces significant elements of engineering infrastructure that are open to new innovations.

As the ACT Resource Recovery Centre gains momentum, we expect to introduce innovative new solutions to some of the unresolved issues around the management and treatment of residual material that currently is not recycled.

There are various examples of similar facilities in other Australian cities. In the context of the broader waste management industry nationally, the ACT leads the way in behavioural recycling.That is, ACT residents actively seek out and promote recycling.

The ACT Resource Recovery Centre offers that ‘beyond the kerbside' recycling to the region and is a key factor influencing the future development of the waste industry.