Proving that bigger isn’t always better, the tight-knit team from Dulverton Waste Management (DWM) has outdone billion-dollar companies to be named Australia’s best landfill.

The north-west Tasmanian facility won the Waste Management Association of Australia’s 2017 Landfill Excellence Awards, which were presented at the annual Australian Landfill and Transfer Stations Conference.

DWM nabbed the award thanks to its achievements in minimising the landfill’s environmental impact, maximising the recovery and re-use of resources and its ability to demonstrate continuous improvement and innovation.

 DWM CEO Mat Greskie, who is also IPWEA Vice President, says the gong is particularly sweet considering the calibre of the competition.

 “Some of the 20-plus companies we were up against are billion dollar companies with thousands of staff, and here we are with three full-time staff, two part timers and half a dozen contactors on site,” he says.

Environmental focus

The DWM landfill is located on a 35 ha site near Latrobe and is a joint authority of the Central Coast, Devonport City, Kentish and Latrobe Councils.

 It was constructed in 1995 and now processes more than 67,000 tonnes of waste each year from more than 80 commercial, industrial and government customers across Tasmania.

 The judges praised DWM for its independently audited Environmental Management System, which dictates the use of innovative practices such as a unique, progressive capping method.

 “Our methodology is that we constantly cap; we bring the clay compacted liner up with the landfill cell, and place our growing medium on that compacted clay and vegetate it,” Greskie says.

 This results in a unique way to reduce the leachate generated by the facility – which, in a wet climate like Tasmania, has the potential to cause a serious management issue.

 “We’ve done a lot of thinking about long-term sustainability, and one of the decisions the board made quite a few years ago was dealing with leachate responsibly in the long-term,” Greskie explains. 

 “Any rainfall falling on that good, compacted clay doesn’t touch the waste at all and becomes stormwater.

“The other thing we really like about it is that any neighbours that see our site don’t actually see a mountain of waste growing, they actually see a green hillside growing. We think that’s a good social outcome as well.

“We also invested about $2 million on a new pump and 7 km pipeline to transfer leachate from our site to the sewage system in the nearest town. It was a big investment for a business of our size, but it just demonstrated our commitment to environmental sustainability.”

In 2008, the DWM landfill expanded its capabilities to include organic composting, making it the largest composting facility in Tasmania and diverting organic matter from the landfill.
 
Greskie says the composting system diverts about 30,000 tonnes of organic matter from the landfill each year.

“There’s an enormous environmental benefit in doing it, it extends your landfill life and reduces greenhouse gases,” Greskie explains.

“The system also produces a high-quality compost to the Australian standard and we’re selling it to about 12 nurseries all around Tasmania, as well as dairy farms, vineyards and orchards, and we’re really proud of that.

The farmers who are applying our product are saying they’re using much, much less of synthetic fertiliser, overall their total cost has gone down and they have much better results.

DWM was also the first landfill in the region to install a landfill gas system to extract methane and assist in carbon abatement equivalent to approximately 10,000 tonnes of carbon equivalents each year.

And, DWM isn’t wasting any time in planning for what will happen after the gates close – something Greskie says many landfills aren’t taking seriously enough.

“We’ve invested a lot of resources in understanding the aftercare costs for our site,” Greskie says.

“Our current predictions are saying that we’ll be landfilling for about another 70-years, but when we shut the gates, we are putting money aside today for what will be a 30-year period where the site will still need to be maintained.

“For 30-years after the site is closed there’ll still be pumps working, electricity, groundwater monitoring, surface water monitoring and repairs to the cap; all of those different things to ensure there’s no harm being caused to the environment. When you add them up, to do that for a period of 30-years, they are staggering costs, and most landfills aren’t doing anything about it.”

How to grow a culture of innovation

Greskie says DMW’s strong culture of innovation is a direct result of encouraging frank and fearless discussion among all staff members.

“What I really push is that we always need to be able to challenge each other, and I don’t care where it comes from – just because I have the title CEO, it doesn’t make my idea better than anyone else’s,” he says.

“If we all challenge each other, then collectively we’ll come up with the best solution.

“That’s the culture that we have – no one feels any discomfort in politely and respectfully challenging others’ ideas, and that includes all the way up to myself.”

Greskie is also proud of his team’s ability to find innovative solutions to problems.

“I pushed for a lot of years that we shouldn’t just work around problems; instead, let’s solve them and never have to deal with them again,” he says.

“There’s a real culture of that – we don’t just drive around the hole in the road, we see what we can do to fix it long-term and fix the root cause.”  

An example of this innovation at work is the landfill’s custom-designed tipping plates that improve safety and accuracy for drivers delivering waste.

“The area where trucks have to tip off the waste can often be an unsafe or something that’s not very permanent. We’ve had a purpose-made tipping platform designed, which has been checked over by a geotechnical engineer to make sure the waste is strong enough to support everything.”

The platform, which Greskie believes is unique to DWM, provides drivers with a bar to back up to so that they know they’ve hit the stop plate and a steel chute to move waste away from the truck.

“It’s a really simple solution but it was born from the ground up; it was something the guys on site suggested a number of years ago and we’ve had feedback that it’s been really effective,” Greskie explains.

DWM’s dedication to safety was recognised at the 2015 WorkSafe Tasmania Awards, where it received Best WHS Initiative for its series of induction videos that – produced for less than $5000 – ensured staff, transporters and contractors of varying literacy levels were fully aware of the company’s policies.

Images:
1. Mat Greskie 
2. The landfill 
3. Leachate pond
4. The tipping plate