Waste sector leaders Cleanaway and ResourceCo Group are transforming commercial and industrial waste into Processed Engineered Fuel at the Wetherill Park resource recovery centre in Sydney.
$10m
CEFC finance
150,000t
waste per year
8mt
emissions abated
At ResourceCo we are committed to playing a key role in helping to achieve Federal Government environmental targets, including waste reduction and carbon emission avoidance. With critical finance support from the CEFC, the opening of the NSW alternative fuel plant will work to achieve just that.Simon BrownManaging Director, ResourceCo
Our investment
The CEFC provided $10 million in debt finance to ResourceCo. Processed Engineered Fuel (PEF) is used in cement kilns, reducing the reliance on coal and other fossil fuels. This fuel will initially be used locally and also exported as an alternative to coal and gas for cement kilns in Asia.
The Wetherill Park plant opened in July 2018. The CEFC finance was repaid in July 2021.
our impact
The Wetherill Park plant is licensed to process 150,000 tonnes of waste a year, producing PEF and recovering other commodities such as metal, clean timber and inert materials.
Over the lifetime of the equipment, the plant is expected to abate over 8 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
Once at the plant, traditionally landfill-bound waste materials are sorted. Through a process of shredding, screening and separating, inert content with no energy value is extracted while the balance of the content is converted into a dry solid fuel product.
Australia produces about 23 million tonnes of landfill each year, causing a growing problem with potential air, water and land quality impacts and generating ongoing monitoring and remediation liabilities.
By turning waste into PEF, the Wetherill Park resource recovery centre is showing how industrial processes can reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. It can also reduce the amount of waste materials going into landfill, an important factor in cutting national greenhouse gas emissions.
