LAWMAC Secretary: Mary Field - PO Box 348 Edmonton Qld 4869 mobile: 0417 730 139 email: lawmacsec@bigpond.com web: www.lawmac.org.au

Issue: February 2021

LAWMAC

Meet our new Executive The Local Authority Waste Management Advisory Committee (LAWMAC) held its AGM in Townsville in September with a new look Executive elected to advance waste management projects and policy for Local Government Authorities from Gladstone, west to Barcaldine and north to the Cook Shire Council in Cape York. With thirty (30) member Councils across regional Queensland and a number of Associate members, it collectively is a powerful lobby group and voice for regional Councils, responsible for waste management in their local communities.

The diverse Executive consists of Cr Neil Fisher Chair (Rockhampton Regional Council), Cr Brett Moller Deputy Chair (Cairns Regional Council), Cr Russ Cook (Townsville City Council), Cr Belinda Hassan (Mackay Regional Council), Cr Andrea Friend (Livingstone Shire Council) and Cr Sean Dillon (Barcaldine Regional Council).

Cr Neil Fisher said the focus of the new executive will be on lobbying both State and Federal Governments for improved policy and targeted investment around waste management, recognising the importance of protecting the natural environment and embracing the opportunities that are presenting in relation to recyclables and the circular and green economies.

‘Dealing with waste comes at a significant financial and environmental cost so we need to embrace new technologies and educate our residents to partner with their local Councils to better manage our waste issues for community benefit now and into the future’ commented Cr Fisher.

The meeting moved a General Business motion to have the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) make representations to the Queensland State Government to have them release the Government’s State and Regional Waste Infrastructure Plan, so that member Councils can undertake their own strategic waste management plans for their own local government areas in alignment with State Government strategy.

Cr Fisher said he was keen to have LAWMAC work with both the State and Federal Governments, in providing grass roots feedback and place based solutions for better policy, legislation and investment in the waste management space.

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Also in this edition:

LAWMAC 1

Meet our new Executive 1

LAUGH OF THE DAY 2

RESOURCE HUB 2

Outsourcing Waste Levy 2

ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL 4

Rockhampton Fires Up For Future 4 Rockhampton Celebrates First ‘Recycling Hero’

School 5 Carbon Footprint Assessment Informing Waste

Management Options 6

TOWNSVILLE REGIONAL COUNCIL 7

Townsville leading the way with landfill rehabilitation project 7

MANDALAY TECHNOLOGIES 8

Drive Meaningful Insights and Informed Actions with Facility Analytics and Reporting 8

CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL 9

New MRF Complete 9

PEAK SERVICES 10

Are Your Future Costs Buried In Your Landfill? 10

LAWMAC 12

2021 Meeting Dates & Host Councils 12

LAUGH OF THE DAY

@DumpDaze

RESOURCE HUB

Outsourcing Waste Levy

For the last few months Lacey Webb at Resource Hub has been supporting a far north Queensland council to better “own their admin” when it comes to Waste Levy, as the reality is that a small change in site layout and operational process can have a large impact on waste levy liability.

In this instance, from July 2020 a handful of customers who had previously disposed of all waste in landfill were now being redirected to Council’s RRA to allow for improved sorting. But a disconnect between the gatehouse team and the administrative team had meant that this change wasn’t being reflected in the transactional data and waste levy returns for the site. It was only when the waste manager signed the QWDS submission, that Council realized the liability looked a little high and the team weren’t able to clearly identify what had led to the change. Like many other facilities in Qld, they had DES reviewing their prior year transactions and wanted to be confident that everything was correct in this year as well.

Council picked up the phone. A 30 minute review of the transactional data behind the

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scenes highlighted the anomaly, which in turn highlighted a need to update the transactional system’s predefined data and also add a few checks and balances into the business processes of Council.

A half hour taken by a fresh set of eyes identified a $5000 overcalculation in levy for the month, and an additional review of prior months plus the current month indicated that the impact extended to 6 months at approximately $27,000, plus a few opportunities to improve rigour in Council’s approval and reconciliation approach. With a few hours of effort, transactions are now rectified, waste levy returns are redrafted and provided to Council and a full schedule of changes to support any internal or state audit requirement is now on file.

Often “admin” is a term that we use to cover many bases: data oversight, someone’s job title, administrative duties, the repeatable tasks we complete each day to keep ourselves organised. The word itself can have both positive and negative connotations, but it’s importance should not be overlooked. When it

comes to Waste Levy admin, it’s important to ensure that administrative functions are experienced, understand the regulatory environment and obligations, and support the requirement to administer what is often one of the largest monthly costs for a waste management facility.

From February, Resource Hub is excited to be supporting this Far North Qld Council with remote regulatory support for their waste levy returns each month. Council will use this as an opportunity to limit risk of non compliance and incorrect return lodgment by adding specialist experience to their team, plus a monthly handover of returns is also going to be used to focus on continuous improvement of process and upskilling Council’s staff. And Resource Hub will continue to do what they love – helping facilities improve business process!

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ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL

Rockhampton Fires Up For Future

Rockhampton Region Waste and Recycling (RRWR) has ignited the fire on its journey toward a more sustainable future with the recent installation of an innovative biogas system.

The Biogas Flare, installed by industry leaders LMS Energy, is a big step toward reducing the carbon footprint of the Lakes Creek Road Waste Management Facility.

Waste to Resource Recovery Councillor Shane Latcham said it was fantastic to see this system up and running.

“The Biogas Flare might not look like much from the outside, but there’s a lot going on below the surface – literally!” said Cr Latcham.

“There’s a series of 18 wells that have been drilled and installed throughout the landfill site.

“This system works by extracting potentially harmful greenhouse gases, such as methane, which are produced when organic matter in the landfill breaks down.

“Instead of being trapped in the landfill or being emitted into the atmosphere, these biogases are now channelled to this flare where they’re safely destroyed.

“In the future we may even be able to add a power module to harness the energy generated from this process and put it back into the grid.

“This is a very exciting project, and LMS Energy has been great to work with every step of the way.”

Jason Dockerill, LMS Energy Contract and Client Manager, said it has been great to partner with Rockhampton Regional Council on this project.

“LMS has manufactured 100 landfill biogas flares similar to this one, all of which are continuing to safely remove and destroy harmful greenhouse gases across Australia,” said Mr Dockerill.

“This is a fantastic project that will have some real environmental benefits.

“Each year, this Biogas Flare at the Lakes Creek Road Waste Management Facility will save approximately 20,000 tonnes of carbon from entering the Earth’s atmosphere.”

To find out more about Rockhampton Regional Council’s strategy to build a circular economy, and our vision to live in a community without waste, download the Rockhampton Regional Waste and Recycling Strategy available at www.rrc.qld.gov.au/rrwr

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Rockhampton Celebrates First ‘Recycling Hero’ School

Students at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School have taken up the challenge to fight for a greener, brighter future and earned their place

as our Region’s first ‘Recycling Hero School’.

Waste and Recycling Councillor Shane Latcham said that it has been fantastic to see how passionate the students are, and how successful the program has been.

“First I want to say a big thank you to St Mary’s for putting their hand up to be our pilot school for this,” said Cr Latcham.

“The Recycling Hero School model was created by officers at Rockhampton Region Waste and Recycling (RRWR), and is unique to our Region.

“This isn’t just a one-off session, it’s a title that a school earns through the delivery of a full education program involving a series of lessons and hands-on activities that can be linked to the national curriculum for a number of subjects and year levels.

“One of the key aspects of this model is regular waste auditing. These audits – as well as ongoing education - are required to

retain the title of ‘Recycling Hero’, which means we can really measure the long term impact the school’s efforts are having.

“I have to say the results we have seen from St Mary’s have been fantastic. Within the first two months we saw a reduction of more than 80% in the amount of overall waste being generated at the school, and an increase in recycling output of more than 3000%!

“This program has now been in place at St Mary’s for just over a year, and the dedication of students, teachers, and Council officers has meant that it has been incredibly successful.

“Now that we’ve proven how successful this program has been we’re starting to roll it out to more schools. Our goal is to eventually have this program running in every primary school in our Region!

“This initiative is part of Council’s broader Waste Strategy, which outlines our plan to achieve zero waste by 2050. One important element of this strategy is to ensure our kids are approaching waste responsibly now, and taking those good habits home to their families.”

A video with footage of St Mary’s students celebrating the title at a school assembly is available here:

https://www.facebook.com/RockhamptonRegionalCouncil/posts/4843632679011732

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Carbon Footprint Assessment Informing Waste Management Options

Governments and organisations across the globe are committing to net carbon emissions. Have you wondered how your operations fare in relation to “carbon emissions” and “carbon footprint”?

Rockhampton Regional Council (RRC) engaged Queensland owned firm, CQG Consulting to explore the viability of introducing a third kerbside bin service for the collection of organic material. The scope included an evaluation of the tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e) otherwise known as the carbon footprint, of a series of different service configurations to determine the most carbon friendly.

Configurations considered the carbon footprint of business as usual (all kerbside general going to landfill), versus an additional fortnightly kerbside collection of garden organics (GO) and a weekly food and garden organics (FOGO) kerbside service. The carbon footprint for three organic processing solutions was assessed, namely open windrow composting (OWC), in-vessel composting (IVC) and anaerobic digestion (AD). CQG also determined the carbon footprint implications for converting 25% of the waste collection fleet to electric trucks.

So, what is needed to calculate the carbon footprint?

The short answer is measured data, however, in the absence of measured data there are assumptions that can be made using industry standards/predictors. For the RRC assessment, CQG input into the model, distances collection trucks travelled, fuel consumption rates associated with bin lifts, waste tonnage forecasts and compositions, electricity and fuel usage for activities related to landfill operation, number of properties serviced and number of total bin lifts. Energy content and emission factors were sourced from the Australian Government National Greenhouse Accounts Factors (August 2019).

With the results of this assessment, RRC has been able to determine the service configuration and organics processing solution that will most effectively reduce Council's carbon footprint associated with waste disposal. CQG engaged a third-party carbon assessment specialist to peer review the calculations and methodologies in accordance with ISO 14064 – GHG measurement and management standards.

RRC now have a better handle on its carbon footprint for the current landfilling operations and data that can be used to inform future business activities, such as the introduction of a third bin.

~ Victoria Hammer & Ed Rice - CQG Consulting

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TOWNSVILLE REGIONAL COUNCIL

Townsville leading the way with landfill rehabilitation project

Townsville City Council is the first council in Australia to use a bituminous geomembrane to cap a landfill site for its rehabilitation.

The $4 million project is constructing the final cap on the remaining portion of the Hervey Range landfill.

The bituminous geomembrane is less prone to leaks and is more resilient than other products.

Council’s Townsville Water and Waste Committee chairperson Councillor Russ Cook said it had been exciting to see the project transform the site.

“Our team is working to build the final capping of the landfilled waste, which had been temporarily capped with earth and mulch,” Cr Cook said.

“This temporary capping is required to allow the landfill to settle prior to final capping. However, in the longer term, a permanent capping system is required.

“The final capping contains layers of earth and a synthetic membrane called bituminous geomembrane. This membrane will stop rainwater from entering the landfill and it will capture the methane produced by the waste, directing it towards a flare to burn it in order to reduce council’s carbon emissions.

“We are nearing the end of this eight-month project.” Division one representative Councillor Margie Ryder said it was the final step towards rehabilitating the site.

Picture: The laying down of the BGM at Hervey Range “Once this capping is finished, council will continue to monitor and control any emissions, as well as doing landscape maintenance,” Cr Ryder said. “The waste mound will look like a natural hill when it is finished. Council is committed to creating a cleaner and greener city and that includes rehabilitating landfills when they reach the end of their life. “The site opened about 1972, so after almost 50 years we’re excited to be able to take this landfill into the next stage.” The capping project began in May 2020 and it is expected to be completed in early 2021.

Video: WIN NEWS Landfill Capping - The $4,000,000 dollar project will construct a permanent, more secure, and environmentally-friendly cap on the Hervey Range landfill.

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MANDALAY TECHNOLOGIES

Drive Meaningful Insights and Informed Actions with Facility Analytics and Reporting

With continual product innovations designed to track and interpret data, Mandalay Technologies’ comprehensive waste management product allows you to accurately analyse and report on the complex details of your waste network.

Good data is the first step towards delivering better outcomes for your organisation by providing insights that will steer you towards a more efficient, structured, and profitable service. This can be achieved through Mandalay’s Facility Analytics and Reporting product.

What Does Facility Analytics and Reporting Do? Facility Analytics and Reporting provides you with access to a wealth of accumulated data and insights about your waste operations, giving your organisation a big picture view across your facilities, right down to the minute detail of individual transactions - all within one easy to use platform.

Extensive Data & Insights – Facility Analytics and Reporting is tailor-made for the waste industry to give you good-quality data and insights that are relevant to your operations. Analyse and report on data beyond your standard operational reports such as transactions, payments, compliance events, accounts, waste types, traffic volumes, date ranges, facilities and more.

Visualise your Data - With its easy-to-use interface, effortlessly navigate through your organisation’s data such as ticket numbers,

order numbers and license plates, and gain multiple views of your data through dashboards and reports. Your data is displayed in near real-time, providing you with accurate reporting on demand.

Filter and Slice Your Data - Easy filter and slicer controls makes looking at the transactional data across different date ranges, products and clients seamless. This includes daily, weekly and monthly perspectives on up to 24 months of data for a single facility or across all your facilities.

Compare Your Data - Benchmark and compare key operational metrics to help you predict trends and identify anomalies. Isolate the data points of your choosing and compare that information across different periods of time.

Flexible and Secure Data Access - Have flexible access to your data across facilities while maintaining superior security over your data with user permissions, data backup and recovery.

Continual Enhancements and Added Features – Client feedback and input is an important part of the continual development and growth of our products, and new features and enhancements are rolled out on a frequent basis. We have several feature sets in the pipeline which will be available soon.

With Facility Analytics and Reporting, you will be provided with a platform that allows you to analyse and run reports on the right data to empower your organisation to make informed decisions and operate with improved efficiency.

If you’re interested in finding out how Mandalay’s Facility Analytics and Reporting product could benefit your organisation, contact Rosemary Black at sales@mandalaytech.com. For more information visit our website at www.mandalaytech.com.au

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CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL

New MRF Complete

A new era for the recovery of kerbside recyclables in Far North Queensland has begun with the commissioning of Cairns Regional Council’s brand new Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), pictured above.

The cutting edge $15 million dollar facility features state of the art optical sorting, screening and quality control systems that will allow for increased recovery of recyclables while decreasing tonnes of material from being sent to landfill. The sortation equipment can be seen in the photo below:

The MRF upgrade project received $3 million from the Building our Regions fund, with Council contributing the remainder.

The new Cairns MRF will be capable of processing up to 30,000t of material per year (up from 15,000t), while delivering up to 85% recycling rate (up from 50%). With its increased capacity comes the greater

opportunity for regional processing of recyclables in the FNQ region.

Manager of Resource Recovery at Cairns Regional Council, Steve Cosatto said he was extremely proud of the new facility and the efforts of the team who made the planning, funding, construction and commissioning possible.

“It’s an exciting first for the Cairns region, a truly impressive facility that utilises latest technologies, greater process automation and new workforce processes to make it possible to achieve double the processing capacity”.

The new facility greatly increases the quality of the final baled product, while delivering significant improvement in waste diversion from landfill.

Designed for greater efficiency, the sorting process in the Cairns MRF now employs screening and optical sorting machine technologies which integrate high speed, infra-red and high-resolution cameras to separate and sort more streams, more accurately than ever before.

The plastics optical sort unit, “Alchemy”, is shown in the photo below:

The Cairns MRF has been initially configured to sort HDPE natural, HDPE colour, PET clear, PET colour, PP, Aluminium, Steel, Mixed Paper and Cardboard commodity types. It can also

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be modified to sort other plastic polymer types in the future if new markets emerge.

With increased automation in the plant, human interaction has decreased in the workflow, but this has not resulted in reduced staff roles at the facility, but rather has put them to better use in quality control positions.

This helps deliver the higher quality, higher value output being produced and improves the workflow to deliver a much safer working environment for the team.

Adding to the Portsmith Resource Recovery Precincts processing capability, and currently under construction, is a new Glass Processing Facility, capable of processing 8,000t of glass per year.

The new glass facility will greatly increase the quality of the final crushed glass sand product through the latest screening and cleaning processes.

PEAK SERVICES

Are Your Future Costs Buried In Your Landfill? Landfills are a necessary part of most waste management strategies for councils throughout Queensland and across Australia, to dispose of residue or unrecoverable waste. Once landfills reach the end of their useful life, capping, closure and ongoing monitoring will commence for a period over many years. The closed landfill site has limited value for other uses over the period due to contamination, uneven and potentially extreme settlement as landfilled materials continue to breakdown at varying rates of decay.

Landfill sites have several long-term future costs which continue well beyond operational closure. Historically, small regional and remote councils are less likely to make adequate provision for these costs due to forecasting complexity and regulatory change. There is a need for these councils to adequately account for future costs (provisioning for landfill restoration) to ensure accurate financial reporting and good governance. 

The provisioning for landfill restoration involves three critical elements. There are legislative and environmental requirements, there are service obligations to the community, and underpinning this, there are financial obligations. 

Many councils may have operating and closed landfill sites that give rise to an obligation to rehabilitate and provide after care site management. This may involve, for example, long-term environmental monitoring of sites into the future (30+ years).  The liability can

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be significant and the correct measurement and treatment of cost is vital to ensure financial reports are accurate.  

Good governance and accurate reporting for landfill sites may also be achieved through the preparation of a restoration accounting model. The preparation of a detailed closure and post closure care plan for the waste disposal site may provide some clarity around timing costs for landfill restoration and monitoring. 

Accounting for landfill is a technically complex accounting method which gives rise to several specific challenges for councils.  These challenges may include identifying the historical landfill sites and understanding their key characteristics, determining the costs associated with rehabilitation and ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the site. This can be a complex and time-consuming task for councils who do not have access to in-house resources and expertise. 

Interestingly, the landfill licence (part of the original DA) may require post closure care at a site to extend for a nominal period of 30 years. This period commences at the cessation of waste disposal activities and continues in effect until it can be demonstrated to the administering authority that the area used for waste disposal will not release contaminants into the environment.  

Councils operate as the tier of government closest to the community (where they work and live), and as such, they should be committed to ensuring they meet their legislative, environmental and community responsibilities pertaining to the management and remediation of landfill sites.  

The cost associated with closing a landfill site is a significant cost that extends 30 or more years into the future. The site will no longer

generate revenue through incoming waste disposal fees, therefore forecasting and accounting for future expenses is vital to ensure the sustainability of the Council. Making adequate provision for future expenses is critical to ensure the future cost of maintaining the landfill site won’t be passed on to our kids and grandkids.

Thanks to Mitch Crane, Waste Facilities Supervisor at Rockhampton Regional Council for supplying the @DumpDaze Comics for this edition.

Mitch’s talents were realised with a few random whiteboard doodles on the Rockhampton Waste Management Facility staff room whiteboard to deliver safety messages and a comical way to ask the team, looking for lost cutlery. An interest in drawing Mitch has had for a while, he has further developed his skills and practice and added some new technology to bring his comics up to a publication standard.

Find more of @DumpDaze on Instagram. Contact Mitch to use his creative content in your publications.

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LAWMAC

2021 Meeting Dates & Host Councils • 18-19 March 2021

Gladstone Regional Council • 20-21 May 2021

Cairns Regional Council • 19-20 August 2021

Barcaldine Regional Council • 18-19 November 2021

Whitsunday Regional Council