An innovative composting system to be built in Morwell will halve the amount of time to process green waste as well as divert almost 15,000 tonnes of food waste from municipal landfill.
Pinegro was awarded a half-million dollar Victorian government grant towards building the state-of-the-art technology to increase its processing capacity by almost 50 per cent.
Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio inspected the Morwell plant on Thursday.
Pinegro general manager John van Meel said the $5.8 million project involved building 40 metre-long temperature and odour-controlled concrete bunkers that would create compost in 14 days.
He said Pinegro currently handled 25,000 tonnes of garden waste in open windrows which take about 12 weeks to compost.
The new plant will enable the Morwell company to include food waste in its composting system which will divert landfill from municipal landfills in Latrobe, Baw Baw and South Gippsland.
“We want the ability to handle waste streams currently going into landfill. This area doesn’t currently have the facility to handle this type of waste,” Mr van Meek said.
“This eliminates methane and volume from going into landfill.”
Mr van Meek said the processed compost would be sold to green thumbs and farmers as a soil conditioner.
He said the German technology should be up and running by the end of next year, pending environmental approvals.
Ms D’Ambrosio said the Pinegro project will help reduce some of the 25,000 tonnes-per-year of Victorian household food waste.
“The Pinegro grant will ensure the best composting technology is available here in Gippsland,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.
“These upgrades to the composting system will increase Pinegro’s capacity to process food waste and absorb more from local councils.”
