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and registration brochure as a printable PDF
OPENING PLENARY
Dr Maryam Esfandbod, Chair of NSRO
Duncan Pegg MP, State Member for Stretton
Tony Roberts, Dept. of Environment & Science
The Queensland Government is developing an organic waste action plan to complement its new Waste Management and Resource Recovery Strategy. The session will explore the challenges and opportunities of recycling organic waste, and how the plan will help to grow the organic recycling industry in Queensland and support the state to move to a more circular economy.
Rick Ralph, WRIQ
Prof Chengrong Chen, Chair of ANROWM
Michael Burke, Department of State Development
Biofutures is an industrial biotechnology and bioproducts platform.
Dr Danielle Toáse, ARCADIS
Emerging contaminants are contaminants of potential concern that have only recently been identified as presenting a public health risk but remain understudied and in some cases are still not regulated. This presentation focuses on emerging contaminants such as per and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, particularly in recycled organics.
RAW MATERIALS
Kelly Bryant, Department of Environment and Science
The Australian Biomass and Bioenergy Assessment (ABBA) is an Australia-wide assessment of biomass resources and biomass resource supply chains. The project is collecting and publishing information about the location, amount, current usage and projected future demand of all types of biomass across Australia. It is also collecting information about relevant infrastructure such as transport networks, and existing users or producers of biomass.
Dr Muriel Lepesteur, EPA Victoria
Numerous parameters may influence pathogen inactivation during composting. Using examples, the timing and mechanisms of pathogen inactivation throughout the composting process will be revealed and the implications for process management and future research needs identified.
Nanthi Bolan, The University of Newcastle
Applying recycled organics including biosolids, manures and composts to agricultural land could increase carbon storage in soils and contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Recently, there have been increasing interests in the conversion of these recycled organics into biochars in order to reduce the rate of decomposition, thereby enhancing carbon sequestration in soils.
Peter Donaghy, Queensland Urban Utilities
A new approach to biosolids production is required to ensure the continued sustainable reuse of biosolids. Moving away from a compliance approach to a production facility approach can enable utilities to create value by producing what the customer wants.
Luke Jacovides, SESL Australia
This presentation provides an overview of the successful and less-successful waste to land application methodologies and the scientific approach in determining the potential benefits (and drawbacks) of land application.
TECHNOLOGIES
Dr Marc Stammbach, HZI Australia
A new HZI Kompogas® plant opened in North America in 2018. The plant digests green & food waste to generate biogas and high-grade compost as well as liquid fertilizer. The plant converts the biogas into 24/7 carbon-neutral electricity and contributes to meeting California’s Greenhouse Gas reduction and Organics Diversion mandates.
Mark Rayner, Rocky Point
In collaboration with Environmental Biogeochemistry Research Lab at Griffith University, Rocky Point has been conducting trials looking at the impact of different compost amendments on soil health and the cane yield in sugarcane production. Application of both conventional composting and anaerobic digestion techniques will be introduced.
Mark Hordern, Qld Urban Utilities
Thermal hydrolysis pretreatment (THP) with anaerobic digestion is used by Queensland Urban Utilities for biosolids stabilisation. A summary of the studies will be presented, including optimisation of THP reaction temperature, influence of THP reaction time, hydrogen sulphide risks and future studies.
Dr Simon Tsang, Ove Arup and Partners (Hong Kong)
Organic Resources Recovery Centre Phase 1 is the first organic waste treatment facility in Hong Kong. The food wastes collected are treated by proven technologies configured as mechanical pre-treatment followed by anaerobic digestion and composting to convert organic wastes to valuable resources (i.e. biogas and compost).
MARKETS AND END USERS
Lukas van Zwieten, NSW DPI & Soil CRC
While organic amendments have been used to help produce food for many thousands of years, an understanding of the mechanisms by which they achieve this remain largely unresolved. Recent published literature has investigated long-term results from around the world in an attempt to tease out the most common beneficial effects, and these will be presented with a summary of key opportunities to maximize beneficial effects.
Andrew Dougall, Sustainability Victoria
The increasing diversion of organics from landfill is resulting in an increasing supply of recycled organics. To build a market for this supply we need to overcome farmer “barriers to adoption” of recycled organics. This paper describes these barriers and outlines efforts to overcome them in Victoria.
Christopher Cameron, Rockmin Composts
This presentation deals initially with a quick look at some common problems faced by many farmers, then going into detail about the mechanism developed to directly address nature’s needs and the results to date of so doing!
Xiangyu Liu, Griffith University
Organic amendments are mostly carried out on the soil surface layer to mitigate the decline in soil health, however, the effects of subsoil application of composts on soil carbon and nutrient dynamics and plant performance are largely unknown. This work is looking into the key benefits of subsoil organic amendments.
Facilited by: Joyanne Manning, ARUP
Dinner MC Prof Rebecca Ford – Dean (Research) for the Sciences Group, Griffith University
Dinner Speaker Dr Beth Woods OAM, FTSE – Director-General, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Music by Malaysian-born singer/songwriter, Nora Sahak
FIELD DAY
The Field Day will be hosted by Prof George Mellick – Professor of Neuroscience and Head of the School of Environment and Science, Griffith University
ROCKY POINT
Established in 1949, Rocky Point specialises in supplying growing media to Horticulture, Agriculture, Revegetation and the Home Garden sectors. On site at our 70-acre facility we produce all of our own compost, along with the preparation and batching of potting mixes, soils, soil conditioners and mulches. All blends are strictly trialled and tested on site as well as externally through a NATA accredited laboratory.
Our on-site bagging and processing plant packages the growing media into bags, ready to be delivered throughout Australia to our network of retailers. Bulk products are delivered by our own fleet of truck and trailers through Queensland and New South Wales. Our vision is to keep growing a healthy and sustainable future for generations to come.
PHOENIX POWER RECYCLERS
Phoenix is Queensland’s first purpose built environmentally controlled composting facility. The facility features aerated floor composting tunnels in a negative pressure environment where odour emissions are minimised and the conditions for composting are optimised. This makes it ideally suited to accept FOGO and food wastes of all kinds.
Phoenix is also working to develop markets in the agricultural community, through market education strategy forming partnerships with waste producers from the food production and biosolids industries to develop products that are in increasing demand for the health of agricultural soils.
Every effort has been made to present all the information contained in this website as accurately as possible. The organisers reserve the right to change, without notice, any or all of these details.