Bunbury-Harvey Regional Council, WA, recently purchased a JCB 436 HT Wheel Loader as part of a new, best-practice organic waste recycling service.
Under Western Australia’s new Waste Strategy policy, launched in March 2012, major regional centres such as Bunbury are committed to recovering 30 per cent of solid waste by 2015, and 50 per cent by 2020.
Responding to this incentive, the City of Bunbury in Western Australia has launched an organic recycling service that will divert its compostable residential and commercial waste to useable compost fertiliser.
In a 2011/12 waste audit, the Council found that 61.5 per cent – or 6680 tonnes – of its residential and commercial waste sent to landfill was made up of compostable material: for example, food scraps, grass clippings, leaves, used paper and small non-treated timber cut-offs.
In an attempt to “divert this valuable resource into a commodity”, as Bunbury-Harvey Regional Council CEO Tony Battersby explained, the Council started rolling out 140L and 240L Organic Recyclables bins to ratepayers in May 2013 – along with eight-page information brochures and a roll of 50 compostable bags (with more available for order through a phone-in or online service).
An organics composting facility was also constructed on Banksia Road, Dardanup, including a composting pad and leachate pond. Plant purchases included a mobile aerated floor, greenwaste mulcher and a front-end wheel loader.
The loader would be used to place new loads onto the compost windrows as well as turn the loads every fortnight. After going out to tender, Bunbury went with a JCB 436 HT Wheel Loader for the project, which is employed full time at the composting facility.
“It was the best value for money,” said Buttersby of the decision. “It certainly wasn’t the cheapest or the dearest, but it was the best value, and the reputation of JCB has come through in the end.”
The JCB 436 HT Wheel Loader runs on a 132kW Cummins Engine and has an operating weight of 15 tonnes.
The City of Bunbury and the Shire of Capel are the only councils to have introduced the organics-recycling scheme this year. With funding support from the WA Waste Authority, the service is expected to be introduced to other councils in 2014 and 2015.