Melbourne Incinerator: a healthier Australia?

 

*Picture This*

 

It’s a Tuesday night and you’re taking your bins out for collection. Mindlessly, you leave them at the curb and then walk back inside thinking nothing of it.

What if I told you that your trash had the potential to be so much more, and with Australia’s current process that potential was being wasted?

 

 

THE CURRENT SET UP

 

Currently, the Australian Paper mill takes up 8% of Victoria’s energy grid and has been since 1938.

Then there’s the damage caused by landfills.

Garbage trucks pick up our trash and dump it in a landfill where the garbage piles up and just sits there, leading to

• toxins in the air
• the creation of Leachate which then finds its way into our oceans
• the creation of greenhouse gases

 

THE PLAN?

 

Build a $600 million incinerator in Melbourne’s LaTrobe Valley.

Australian Paper mill has spent $5 million creating a plan that could eliminate greenhouse gases, save energy, and overall better our environment.

 

THE RESULT?

 

The mill’s usage of Victoria’s energy grid will be reduced by 60%.

They’ll only be taking up 225 megawatts of energy and they’ll then be able to sell energy back into the grid.

Also;

• 650,000 tonnes of waste will no longer be taking up space just sitting in landfills
• Greenhouse gases will be reduced by 550,000 tonnes, the equivalent of 100,000 cars being taken off the road.

 

HOW IT’LL WORK

 

The process will start with your local garbage companies.

Drivers will pick up your bins as normal, only this time they’ll take them to a local freight train and the trains will deliver the garbage to the incinerator.

Once in the incinerator, the garbage will be separated, from the recyclables.

Recyclables will be turned in to be used for other things.

The rest of the trash will be burned, where the steam from the burnt garbage will run through;

1. a steam turbine generator (creates the energy)
2. an air quality control system
3. a filter which essentially bottles up energy whilst simultaneously releasing the clean air back into our environment.

 

JOBS, JOBS & JOBS

 

The incinerator project plans on providing heaps of work to a little more than 2,000 people.

1400 of these jobs will be in the construction industry, as there will be a huge need for setting up the factory and building the incinerator.

Once the project complete, 440 jobs are expected to come out to keep the factory running, as well as truck and train drivers.

 

MELBOURNE INCINERATOR: A HEALTHIER AUSTRALIA?

When it comes to our environment, we genuinely have a lot of work to do.

That being said the problem will never be fixed if we don’t start with the baby steps. Would this incinerator be one of these baby steps?

Expected to be up and running by 2023, it looks like we’re on our way to a healthier Australia

 

Let me know your thoughts on this project.