JJ RICHARDS’ FOOD WASTE
INITIATIVE
Waste management leader JJ Richards & Sons is proving
an environmental initiative in Sydney that eliminates
landfill dumping of commercial and retail food waste by
transforming it into valuable green energy and fertiliser.
The company’s customengineered
waste
reception centre at
Seven Hills – which
its designers say
has demonstrated potential to
become a model for national use
– processes pulped waste from
its partner Pulpmaster’s collection
tankers into an easily handled
and valuable resource for use in
agriculture, horticulture and fossil fuel
replacement.
The plant – which already handles
bulk waste from major customers
including supermarkets, food
shops, hospitals, schools and
catering facilities – uses CST
Wastewater Solutions’ KDS multidisc
fine screening and compaction
technology as part of its automated
process that turns the pulped waste
collected into a cake form that is
more than 50% lighter and dryer
than the pulp and which can be
transported to users for half the cost
of heavier and less hygienic output.
Waste producers using the system
get monthly reports on how much
they are saving on disposal costs,
while simultaneously reducing their
environmental impact. The material is
used by farms and other agricultural
enterprises as high potency fertiliser
and for the production of biogas to
reduce their environment footprints
whilst simultaneously boosting their
output with natural fertilisers and fossil
fuel replacement green energy.
“The system has been brilliantly
received by community-minded
customers who are reducing their
environmental impact, as well as by
users of the cleaner greener energy
and fertiliser coming out of it,” says
JJ Richards & Sons Pty Ltd NSW/
ACT operations manager, liquids, Ben
Martis.
“The system not only disposes of an
environmental headache and cost for
responsible businesses – including
high landfill costs and the high cost
of transporting waste to somewhere
remote, secure and non-harmful
– but turns the problem into an
environmental asset – and a cost
saver.
“Businesses love getting the reports
on the environmental benefits of
their waste disposal and recycling,
because they can demonstrate
benefits to the community, while
also saving themselves substantial
measurable costs,” says Mr Martis,
who has been deeply involved in the
design and proving of the Seven Hills
plant, which features twin 28-ton
filtrate receival tanks and similarly
large vessels to process waste to
the pH levels most ideal for recycling
uses and injection into the ground as
fertiliser.
The automated and highly reliable
receival, processing and despatch
facility at Seven Hills features high
speed drive-in pulp receival bays and
treatment tanks for the thousands
of tonnes of throughput delivered by
Pulpmaster tankers, which employ
an environmentally friendly and
cost-effective collection system that
converts the mixed waste they collect
into pulp slurry for further processing
into organic fertiliser and biogas.
This slurry passes from the Seven
Hills treatment tanks through ultrafine
(1mm) screening from CST
Wastewater Solutions before passing
through the KDS dewatering and
liquid separation process, which
transforms the sloppy pulp waste
into a hygienic, compact and much
lighter dewatered output that is easy
to handle and costs 50 per cent less
than heavier wet waste to transport
onwards to users of the output. This
lighter and compacted output is
automatically fed into 35-ton slideout
waste handling bins for loading
onto JJ Richards onward delivery
vehicles.
The KDS system can be run
continuously and reliably, with low
energy consumption, to optimise
output from the Seven Hills plant.
“There is a lot to like about the KDS
system,” says Mr Martis. “It has very
few moving parts, high-efficiency
dewatering operation, uses little
energy and doesn’t break down. It is
a quality system.”
In addition to custom-engineered
applications such as JJ Richards’,
the KDS system can also be skidmounted
to manage separation and
compaction needs on remote sites,
saving waste transport disposal
costs
CST Wastewater Solutions Engineer
Peter Bambridge, who worked with
Mr Martis in installing, commissioning
and optimising the KDS technology
at Seven Hills, says transport and
handling of non-processed mixed
food waste can be a killer cost for
business.
DELIVERS NATIONAL POTENTIAL
FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADVANCES
A JJ Richards tanker at Seven Hills involved in the Pulpmaster process, which transforms
food waste pulp into organic fertiliser, generates green electricity from the biogas, ensures
zero waste goes to landfill and curtails oil and grease entering sewer systems
E N V I R O N M E N T
38 JUNE 2019