After completing its acquisition of Perthwaste in June, Suez is looking to build on its expanded waste solutions suite with an energy from waste plant.
Western Australia (WA) has one of the fastest growing populations in Australia. Home to 2.59 million people, its number of residents increased by 1.3 per cent between 2014 and 2015. In Greater Perth some town populations are increasing by 10 to 23 per cent a year.
Reflecting this growth, Suez has also been developing its business and positioning itself to manage the associated rise in waste generated.
This past June, Suez completed its acquisition of Perthwaste, a leading waste management services provider in WA, in a deal valued at $87 million.
Working there since 2000, Suez was already a substantial, diversified business in the state turning over more than $100 million annually. It had 250 employees at six waste disposal and processing facilities and a fleet of 75 trucks. It operated from sites mostly in the Perth metro area, but also in Kalgoorlie to the east and Busselton in the south. From these facilities it has diverted 100,000 tonnes of collected waste from landfill each year.
State General Manager – WA Nial Stock has worked with Suez since 2008.
“Before the acquisition, we had about 6,000 clients and our collections business was almost entirely commercial and industrial (C&I),” says Nial. “Our disposal and treatment contracts were mainly with local and regional councils.”
Over recent years, Suez underpinned its status in WA by introducing several innovations, delivering complex waste projects and diversifying away from landfill.
In 2009, it built an Advanced Resource Recovery Technology (ARRT) facility in Neerabup, 31 kilometres from Perth CBD costing $80 million. This diverts more than 50 per cent of waste collected from landfill by turning suitable household waste into compost.
Suez also bought and expanded a waste paper business and a medical waste incineration and treatment facility, an industrial services business and developed the ability to sort commercial waste at its Welshpool depot.
With this range of services, Nial says increasing numbers of clients have trusted Suez for their waste management needs.
“I think to an extent we’re a one stop shop, so people can be certain that when we take their waste it ends up in a best practice, environmentally responsible resource recovery or treatment centre,” says Nial. “We have absolute control because we own the facilities, not only over collection but also over the treatment and disposal points as well.”
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