Cleanaway’s organics facility in Eastern Creek is enriching soils and providing new opportunities for New South Wales’ circular economy journey.
Compost has many benefits for agriculture, including improved soil health, increased crop yields and reduced soil erosion, and has been widely used to help restore ecosystems.
So when an Oberon farmer wanted to restore a lucerne paddock that wasn’t performing and boost his crop, he turned to a new product on the market – Cleanaway compost.
Ten weeks after the compost was spread, testing by an independent agronomist found a 58 per cent boost in crop yield and benefits are expected to continue. Trial strips showed better colour and more growth. A better crop means healthier cattle and higher meat production, which is the aim at the end of the day.
It’s one of the early successes of Cleanaway’s new organics facility in Eastern Creek, New South Wales.
For Ash Turner, State Manager for Resource Recovery, it’s a positive step toward helping develop Australia’s circular economy.
Cleanaway has always aimed to keep resources circulating in the economy so they can be used for the same or similar products. However, its approach to circularity is evolving. In a submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into opportunities in the circular economy in 2024, Cleanaway recognised that a circular economy is broader than recycling and that there are opportunities and responsibilities to be explored in designing out waste and pollution. Regenerating nature through compost is one of them.
Ash says the Eastern Creek organics facility is a key part of Cleanaway’s Resource Recovery Network, processing food organics and garden organics (FOGO) from local households into a compost that can be used on farms, that in turn produces new food for consumption.
“Recovering and returning these valuable nutrients back to farmland is helping to enrich soils and support healthier ecosystems,” he says. “I’ve seen the product on the ground and seen the results. It is quite demonstrable. It’s exciting to see a product that you’ve made, doing something beneficial.
“By keeping food waste out of landfill, we’re also reducing methane gases that are produced when organic matter breaks down and helping conserve limited landfill space in Sydney.”
Cleanaway’s Eastern Creek facility has the capacity to process up to 220,000 tonnes of organics annually. It began processing FOGO from several Sydney metropolitan councils in October 2024 and another large western Sydney council is expected to sign on soon.
The compost hall, which houses Biomax composting technology, is complete and running as designed. The hall gives Cleanaway full control of the atmosphere, improving the composting process by reducing maturation time.
Cleanaway’s composting process includes manual screening, sizing, and will include advanced decontamination techniques such as selective automated sorting, magnetic/non-magnetic separation and wind sifting. This method, followed by secondary screening, allows the facility to handle feedstock with higher levels of contamination but still achieve a compliant, quality compost product.
Contamination is currently about eight per cent, which, Ash says, is to be expected at the early stages of FOGO kerbside collection. Cleanaway continues to work with customers to educate on what can and can’t go in FOGO collections to ensure this rate is maintained or improved in future.
Ash is excited by the opportunity to finetune the process at the facility’s new refinery. While the compost meets biosecurity and Resource Recovery Order requirements, the process is not as efficient as it could be.
“Currently, we’re reprocessing about 40 per cent of our final product to get more out of it,” Ash says. “The refinery will do all of that in one go.”
Cleanaway made a commitment to reinvigorate the Eastern Creek facility more than two years ago, in anticipation of growing customer demand for organics processing.
Ash says that commitment has put Cleanaway ahead of the curve now that the New South Wales Government has implemented a statewide mandate for FOGO recycling for households by July 2030 and businesses and institutions in stages from July 2026 and allows Cleanaway to support local councils and customers as they make the transition to FOGO.
“We’re in the middle of Sydney. We’re easy to get to and we have a solution that’s up and running,” Ash says. “We have the ability to take and process FOGO now.”
He says Cleanaway can lean on its experience to help councils and businesses transition to organics collections ahead of the mandate. This makes the transition and communication with communities easier because they can introduce services progressively.
He encourages councils to tour the Eastern Creek facility to see the process first-hand.
“They can come here and see trucks tipping FOGO at one end of the facility and at the other end of the process they can see a good, quality compost,” Ash says. “It really does excite people.”
For more information, visit:
www.cleanaway.com.au
