Ennovo leverages its landfill gas expertise to navigate the changing waste landscape.
The ground beneath Australia’s traditional waste management sector is shifting. Ambitious 2030 national waste reduction targets and the removal of organic waste from landfill are redefining the landfill business model. The most immediate fallout is the reduction in landfill gas generation rates, forcing operators to rethink capital (CapEx) and operating expenditure, and the impact on future revenue.
The change is opening new opportunities for adaptable operators like environmental management company Ennovo.
Ennovo is known for its technology-driven solutions for the waste management, renewable energy, and contaminated land industries. Managing Director Ben Dearman says the company’s expansion into the recycled organics space is less a change of direction and more a logical way of complementing its long-standing work in landfill services.
The company’s move is underpinned by the development of its CarbonAir System – an automated control platform designed to support forced aeration systems and streamline the composting process. The technology can be applied to very simple static and turned windrows, tunnels, or compost halls, offering a flexible solution to better manufacture a consistently high-quality product in shorter timeframes.
While the technology provides the necessary processing muscle, Ennovo’s new focus is on supporting and driving market pull for the resulting material, rather than just market push.
“We run the risk of being able to collect and process all this organic material, which is great, but we don’t necessarily have well-established markets for it.
“We’ve always been aware that the reduction in gas generated at landfill is a possibility. We have started to see reductions on some of the landfills that we manage, and we have had some clients come to us looking for help to process organics that will no longer end up in landfill,” Ben says.
“With the development of the CarbonAir technology, we’ve been able to demonstrate that our experience in landfill services – from EPA (Environment Protection Authority) licensing and regulatory support to environmental monitoring requirements and carbon credit management – is transferable across to recycled organics.”
Ennovo has taken on key people to drive the new division, leveraging Ben’s own 25 years of experience in composting.
For clients seeking to process increasing amounts of diverted organic material, Ennovo offers designs and processes to better manufacture products that can be successfully sold into dedicated markets.
Ben says this requires a deep understanding of the inputs and outputs, combining both science and market foresight.
“It’s looking at the feedstock inputs into the compost itself and knowing what type of end product that’s going to make, both physically and from a nutrient content perspective,” he says.
“But it’s also understanding which markets are going to use those products, whether it’s horticulture, broadacre, home garden or something that’s more specific, as well as how they are going to use these products.”
An emphasis on identifying and securing end markets is one of the company’s core strengths, which stems directly from the Ennovo team, which has expertise in this area.
Ben says having a large team of experts working across the industry enables the identification of innovative practices and fosters close collaboration with agronomy service providers. This strategic alignment strengthens the connection between processed organics and premium agricultural applications.
The importance of this market connection was highlighted in a recent case where a client was processing very high-carbon, wood-based materials.
Ennovo recommended adding high-strength organic waste to the mix to dramatically increase a particular nutrient component, thereby improving its value proposition to local horticultural industries.
Ben says this approach ensures that while the total market size for compost is vast, products are specifically manufactured for guaranteed end-use.
He says the impact of organics diversion is not a distant threat; it’s already changing the calculus for landfill operators.
“This shift is going to impact the capital expenditure (CapEx) and operating expenditure (OpEx) decisions of landfill operators,” he says.
“They absolutely need to forecast this real impact as the community is encouraged to remove organics, especially food waste, from the waste stream. Operators won’t necessarily become composters; that work may be undertaken by third parties.”
For more information, visit: www.ennovo.com.au
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