South Australia Environment Minister Susan Close is set to unveil the ‘Dublin Eco Hub’ today to reflect broader recycling operations active in Adelaide, as well as a substantial ownership transition for the family-owned business, Integrated Waste Services (IWS).
In a media release, IWS revealed that Adelaide’s main waste processing facility, located in Lower Light, near Dublin, will receive big investments including $10 million for IWS Secondary Processing Facility.
The funding will cover the efforts for recovering organics from MSW (general waste bin) to create a soil enhancer known as Compost Like Output (CLO).
According to IWS, the method encourages the highest level of usage for MSW’s organic recyclables.
On the waste hierarchy, CLO generation is superior to burning waste at a waste-to-energy facility, and recovered organics can be used for site rehabilitation, according to three years of research by the University of South Australia.
Moreover, IWS has been given the go-ahead to use the CLO Alternative Waste Treatment procedure by the Federal Government’s Clean Energy Regulators.
This approval acknowledges the advantages of the IWS organic recovery technique (CLO) for the environment.
Over the next 13 years, the initiative is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than a million tonnes, and IWS must make an extra estimated $10 million infrastructure investment for this project.
IWS is also launching Living Earth, which has over 30 years of experience in New Zealand in the production and sale of commercial mulches and compost.
IWS said it recovers up to 97 per cent of FOGO (green bin) material, which will be used to generate commercial mulches and composts for sale to the South African agricultural business.
As part of the expansion, IWS revealed it is working in collaboration with our First Nations people.
To date, IWS has created the state’s first Circular Economy Agribusiness on the Dublin site in collaboration with Red Centre Enterprises.
This collaboration uses IWS commercial composts to supply native plants and bush tucker products.
IWS Chief Executive Joe Borrelli said the team’s dedication to waste management includes all of the most recent environmental innovations.
He claimed the company has been “too quiet” about what it had accomplished over the previous three decades, but will now be outlining its accomplishments and cutting-edge future plans for the country and the globe.
“We summarise it with 5 words: Giving Waste a Second Chance. Our business is continually changing and growing to meet the future requirements of waste and recycling. Waste is no longer just an unlined hole in the ground,” Borrelli noted.
