Through their joint venture company EarthSure, Veolia and Ventia have opened a new soil washing plant in Victoria that can clean up to 160,000 tonnes of contaminated soil per year.
The Dandenong South facility in Melbourne is capable of treating the equivalent of 25 to 30 percent of all Category C contaminated soils generated in Victoria annually.
Category C soils are classified as contaminated, but low-level priority waste soils with contaminant concentrations higher than Category D (or fill material) ,but below Category B, which typically contains high-level industrial waste with elevated concentrations of chemicals, metals or hydrocarbons.
In contrast, Category C soils – which most commonly come from remediation and construction projects – pose a moderate risk to human health and the environment. The soil washing technique removes organic and inorganic contaminants such as oil, fuel, debris, organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic carbons and heavy metals, so that the aggregate can be repurposed for beneficial reuse.
The EarthSure Soil Wash Plant at Taylors Road Resource Recovery Precinct in Dandenong South is expected to divert a significant amount of soil that would otherwise head to landfill.
The washed soil can be reused in a range of projects where recovered aggregates and sand replace the need for quarried materials.
“EarthSure’s facility is a groundbreaking and scalable solution for Victoria’s environmental security and circular economy,” Veolia chief operating officer Carmen Loecherer says.
“The new facility allows us to recover more contaminated soils, by treating them to a level where they can be safely reused in a range of construction and civil engineering applications such as for backfilling, concrete, asphalt and more.”
Loecherer adds that by treating these materials, EarthSure also reduces the need for quarried virgin materials.
The introduction of the soil wash plant complements the existing direct-fired thermal desorption facility at the Taylors Road Resource Recovery Precinct, which already treats more highly contaminated Category A (highly contaminated, hazardous waste soils) and B waste derived from industrial processes and remediation projects.
The newly opened EarthSure Soil Wash Plant therefore transforms the precinct into a one-stop solution for soil remediation across Category A, B and C soils.
“As landfill capacity tightens and demand for sustainable construction materials grows, soil washing allows us to keep valuable resources in use rather than buried,” Ventia general manager for Environmental Services Adam Fletcher says.
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