Talking Trash

What happens when a mining engineer looks in his trash can? He doesn’t see trash.  He sees ore. Ore is just what David Singh sees in the 11 percent of Sydney’s rubbish that his company, Global Renewables is contracted to process each year. Global Renewables’ goal is to extract the highest value from Sydney’s municipal waste stream and that is what they have been doing at their Eastern Creek Facility for almost a decade. Under a pay for performance contract the company is paid for tons diverted from landfill. The video explains how it works. 

The company can divert better than 65 percent of the tons that hit its scales each day.  Beyond commodities recycling, the company produces a high grade compost with the growing power of cow manure. Key take away from my trip to Australia, nothing grows crops like cow poop, but I probably could have learned that from Nathan and Larkin (2012 Eisenhower Agricultural).  There are some serious take aways from my morning with David and Global Renewables’ John Lawson.

Policy matters - The state government charges a tax of aboutAUS$95 for every ton of solid waste tipped into the landfill, which creates a significant financial incentive for local governments to send as little as possible to landfill.  Since the 1970s Australia has banned incineration so waste to energy plants are not currently in operation.  This factors combine to make the Global Renewables process viable. 

The original project included producing energy from anaerobic digestion of the waste to power the plant. That portion of the project has been moth balled following the crash of the Australian renewable energy credit markets and changes in carbon tax accounting.

Passion matters – David is passionate about his work and so is his team. When the company had to shut down for six weeks during a legal battle over a key contract, nearly 50 team members had to be laid off, all but 2 returned as the company got back on its feet. There are many great mission statements, principles etc, but passion is embedded right in GR’s vision and values.  Their values include that “every employee starts each day with a sense of purpose and ends each day with a sense of accomplishment.” That statement is resonating well this month.