October 2022: Albury City Council Waste Water Treatment Plant (2)
Council’s wastewater treatment plants at Kremur Street and Waterview produce approximately 8,500 tons of biosolids annually, all of which is disposed of at the Albury Waste Management Centre.
Council has released two tenders to the open market to find appropriate contractors and environments to accept the biosolids and put them to beneficial reuse. In both cases, the presence of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the biosolids has limited the number of viable reuse
options, and as such Council has been unable to enter into contractual arrangements in this regard.
Emerging technologies such as converting biosolids into biochar through pyrolysis present an alternative to traditional reuse options, particularly as contaminates such as PFAS are volatilised during the process of creating biochar. From an economies of scale point of view, larger volumes of
biosolids or other organic waste is required, over and above that produced by Council, in order to make the process efficient. Aggregating Albury City’s biosolids with volumes produced by other Councils may present a viable method for achieving the required volumes to achieve the efficient
production of biochar.
Council Officers have been exploring short term and long term biosolids management options for some time, the results of which will inform a Council report in April 2023.