Aussies want to recycle, but less than 20 per cent do so. Rest assured, lack of interest is not the problem; lack of infrastructural capabilities is. So, clean tech company Environmental Clean Technologies Limited (ASX: ECT) has signed a binding Memorandum of Understanding with the Calleja Group, owners of JBD Industrial Park, to develop a waste innovation hub in its Bacchus Marsh site in Victoria, Melbourne.
Banning plastic has been a move considered globally and adopted by a few. Though it can help with waste management, even in developed economies such as Australia, the lack of waste businesses can hamper the noble cause. Most of the time, waste results in stockpiling or landfilling, shining a light on the broad systemic failure of government policies to develop a circular economy.
Through this MoU, ECT and the Calleja Group will explore opportunities to develop innovative recycling and resource recovery technologies and solutions for difficult-to-process waste streams.
ECT Managing Director, Glenn Fozard, said, “As part of this waste innovation hub at JBD Industrial Park, our plant will process hard-to-manage waste (like biosolids and plastic contaminated compost) and convert these into valuable energy and agricultural products, with a net zero emission footprint.”
Panasonic recently signed on ECT’s Bacchus Marsh site to gain access to clean hydrogen to test its hydrogen-fuelled vehicles. ECT has been at the helm of many sustainable movements in Australia, and this MoU might be another win for the books.
The agreement underlines a collaborative framework with the site’s owner to ensure both ECT and Calleja Group optimise their mutual interests for future commercial operations. Once ECT completes Phase 1 testing of its COLDry demonstration plant in December 2022, the Company will move on to Phase 2—the commercial demonstration of its Viridian Hydrogen process over 2023, which utilises pyrolysis (excessively heating biomass) to produce net-zero hydrogen.
The MoU targets three key inputs: electricity access, waste heat harvesting and feedstock supplies. These represent over 80% of the operational costs for the Viridian Hydrogen process, and control and management of these are essential to delivering an economically feasible operation.
Calleja Group Managing Director, Don Calleja, shared, “This MoU continues a 17-year partnership between ECT and the Calleja Group. Calleja Group is pleased to see plans for a commercial operation using the COLDry technology that will complement our group’s plans for developing the site into a Waste Innovation Hub.”
Besides owning JBD, the Calleja Group operates a waste management and resource recovery business. It brings this expertise to the waste innovation hub. ECT is a tenant of the Calleja Group at JBD. With its COLDry project at Bacchus Marsh, it wants to display its unique solutions, including clean hydrogen, agricultural char and battery-active carbon. With use cases across industries, from food to health, its sustainable solutions are geared towards improving the state of Australia’s environmental affairs.
Fozard noted, “As we’ve progressed with the development of our COLDry and Viridian Hydrogen demonstration, we’ve found a range of synergies and a common strategic alignment around the emerging need to develop innovative solutions to challenging recycling problems in the circular economy.”
Together, the Calleja Group and ECT will enhance JBD into a waste innovation hub that can sort, process, recycle, transfer and dispose of materials, and use waste to generate energy and other value-added products. These include agricultural products, like fertilisers, and even hydrogen products, like fuel.
The plans are in the evolution stage, yet to move on to development. Each party will be meeting their own costs for this project.
Alinda is a Business Reporter for The Sentiment
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