New landfill cell open at Shoal Bay

Construction on a new landfill cell at the Shoal Bay Waste Management Facility has recently been completed with the area receiving its first loads of waste this week.

The $8.55 million project was delivered by local company DTA Constructions and took 14 months to complete.

City of Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis said that even though the new landfill cell is needed to deal with the domestic and commercial waste generated by the Darwin community, everyone needs to rethink how waste can be diverted.

“It is absolutely necessary for us to reduce waste that goes into landfill so that the lifespan of this new landfill cell can be extended and to help reduce our effects on climate change and the environment.

“This can be achieved through waste diversion programs, recycling and re-use, to divert resources away from landfill.

“City of Darwin will continue to explore new waste diversion initiatives and is currently developing a Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy to deliver best practice initiatives and direction over the next ten years.”

The new landfill area covers 30,000 square metres with a varying depth of 2.5 metres at its shallowest point to 6 metres at its deepest point. Approximately 80,000 cubic metres of material was excavated during construction with all of the excavated material recycled back into the construction of the project or used across the site for landfilling activities. In addition, approximately 30,000 cubic metres of engineered fill was imported back into the project for construction.

The new cell is lined with low permeability clay-rich material, an engineered HDPE (plastic) Geomembrane liner, a reinforced Geosynthetic Clay liner and finally a protective geotextile fabric. The combination of the layers allows leachate (contaminated water) to be collected and drained from the topside of the liner as well as providing a protective barrier between the waste, underlying ground layers and surrounding environment.

Leachate is filtered from the bottom of the cell through a network of aggregate and slotted pipes before being pumped into our greater leachate management system.

Gas harvesting infrastructure has also been incorporated into the design and construction of the cell. This will eventually allow for the capture and reuse of methane gas as a form of sustainable energy generation.

During the past 12 months, City of Darwin received 160,790 tonnes of waste into landfill from 60% of the Northern Territory’s population.

“Council is working towards a best practice Waste Reduction and Resource Recovery Strategy and will continue to explore new waste diversion initiatives in coming years to encourage re-use and recycling, and to divert resources away from landfill,” said the Lord Mayor.

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