A FORMER veneer plant next to the Boyer paper mill is to be redeveloped as a $15 million organic waste processing site. Local family business Barwick’s Landscape Supplies bought the fomer Gunns Veneer plant some years ago to house its existing pine bark processing facility.
Barwick’s is now in the process of seeking Derwent Valley Council approval to construct an in-vessel composting facility (IVC), supported by $3m from the State Government and $3m from the Federal Government’s Food Waste for Healthy Soils Fund, to expand the current processing capacity by 52,000 tonnes to 165,000 tonnes per annum.
The development is intended to provide a cost-effective landfill diversion solution and generate a compost by-product for re-use in the state’s agricultural, nursery, government, and residential sectors. Barwick’s managing director Tyronn Barwick said the new facility would support the Tasmanian Government’s Waste Action Plan to reduce organic waste sent to landfill by 25% by 2025 and 50% by 2030.
“By producing more compost from organic waste, Tasmanians will see a reduction in waste to landfill, healthier food through greater soil conditions, and stronger and more local food systems with a generative outlook,” Mr Barwick said.
Barwick’s currently reprocesses more than 113 kilotonnes of organic waste each year (KTPA) across its Boyer, Mornington, Glenorchy and Oatlands sites, including 11ktpa of household food and organic waste (FOGO) from the Hobart, Glenorchy, Brighton and Kingborough councils.
“We have a taken a conservative approach to start-up by only treating waste materials that we have considerable experience in composting,” Mr Barwick said. “Once we have established a solid operating knowledge of how these materials perform within the new facility, we will consider gradually introducing other sources of organic waste into feedstock blends,” he said.
The facility is expected to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting the additional 52,000 tonnes of organic waste which would have been otherwise land spread or sent to landfill.
Read more in this week’s print edition of New Norfolk and Derwent Valley News, out on September 29.
Picture: Barwick’s managing director Tyronn Barwick, left, with project manager Rod Henham.
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