Woodlawn Bioreactor and Eco-Precinct
The Woodlawn Eco-Precinct was named as a recent finalist of the 2010 United Nations Association of Australia's - Best Specific Environmental Initiative.
Woodlawn Eco-Precinct – An Overview
Woodlawn Eco-precinct is located 250kms south of Sydney, near Goulburn in New South Wales. Previously a copper, lead and zinc open-cut mine, the void is now used as an in-situ bioreactor and the surrounding area is fast becoming one of Australia’s largest eco-precincts.
The Woodlawn Eco-Precinct is comprised of four key elements:
- Woodlawn Bioreactor
- Woodlawn Alternative Sorting and Processing (WASP) facility
- Woodlawn Aquaculture facility
- The Woodlawn Education Centre
Woodlawn offers a significant alternative for the resource recovery and disposal of putrescible waste in New South Wales by utilising proven technologies that are used by our Veolia counterparts around the world. The bioreactor facility extracts green electricity from what would otherwise be waste material.
The WASP facility will be designed to extract reusable materials and produces compost for onsite mine rehabilitation, with the objective of returning the degradable land back into productive land.
Understanding the state of waste management in NSW
In October 2008, the NSW Government through the Department of Planningcommissioned Wright Corporate Strategy to provide independent advice on future waste infrastructure needs based on an analysis current and future landfill capacity and demand.
The Report indicated that Sydney’s current waste infrastructure could not sustain the rate of waste generation. The report also demonstrated that there issome 40 million tonnes of theoretically available landfill capacity to serve the Sydney basin, including 32 million tonnes at Woodlawn. At a rate of 2 million tonnes, this implies 20 years of theoretical capacity.
Woodlawn Eco-precinct and bioreactor is therefore set to play an integral part in providing a long term solution for managing NSW’s waste.
As the Woodlawn bioreactor currently accepts around 40% of Sydney’s putrescible waste, it has become a project that Veolia and the greater waste management market sees as a primary example of best practice waste technology. Since opening in 2005, over 2.2 million tonnes of waste has been accepted and used to generate green energy.
The WASP facility will be designed to extract reusable materials and produces compost for onsite mine rehabilitation, with the objective of returning the degradable land back into productive land.
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Click here to download the Woodlawn Eco-precinct brochure
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