Creating Revenue Out Of Green Waste: New Perspectives For Municipal Organic Waste Harvesting In Geelong, Australia

The diversion and recovery of organic waste are one of the most significant opportunities and challenges for reducing the environmental impacts of waste disposal internationally, as recognised by the United Nations’ SDG 12 that seeks to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”. This issue is particularly pertinent to developed countries, like Australia, who have a high propensity for waste removal arising from their industrial and domestic use of products, materials and organic consumables. Through the use of GIS technology, using modelling software developed by the Global Methane Initiative, a series of simulations were undertaken to determine the viability of an anaerobic digester for the City of Greater Geelong (COGG), located in the State of Victoria (Australia), where organic materials constitute over 25% of all waste land-filled. Using only municipal organic waste, the modelling concluded that the COGG would generate between AU$6M-AU$11M/annum from the sale of biogas/methane. In addition to this revenue stream, COGG would have an Annual Projected Net Emissions Reductions of 3797 Mt. This paper further considers the development of a geospatial database to identify and locate concentrated organic waste resources in COGG, the design and development of a software tool to help quantify the production of food waste, and the development of an economic model to value the organic waste stream of COGG arising from the implementation of this proposal.