Adelaide’s Wingfield Waste & Recycling Centre is a world-leading initiative that is turning a mountain of rubbish into a sustainable recycling sector that delivers jobs, profits and environmental dividends.

Within four years of closing as a landfill operation, the 94-hectare Wingfield site has become a world-class recycling and resource recovery precinct, supporting an innovative cluster of recycling businesses.

With a collective 2008 turnover of nearly $40 million and employing more than 80 people, businesses at the Wingfield Waste & Recycling Centre managed to recycle about 87 per cent of the nearly one million tonnes of waste materials delivered to the precinct in 2007.

By contrast, when the Wingfield dump was closed as a landfill operation on December 31, 2004, it received a record 1,075,000 tonnes of waste material during its final year, with negligible recycling.

With an 2008 employee head count of 84 – more than four times its 2004 job level – Wingfield now
generates $38 million worth of economic activity, nearly twice the total of 2004 dump fee earnings.
Recycling operations at the Wingfield Waste & Recycling Centre include:

• Amcor Recycling, which recycles 50,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard waste annually
• Jeffries, which recycles 100,000 tonnes of green waste annually into mulch and compost
• Adelaide Resource Recovery (ARR) which transforms construction and demolition waste into “Recycled Rubble” products used for building and road foundations; and
• TPI (TransPacific Industries), which accepts residual waste and also operates the award-winning landfill facility at Inkerman, 80km north of Adelaide.

Adelaide City Council also operates a “cleanfill” facility at Wingfield which accepts and distributes
clean soils, clays and mixed materials for use in land reclamation, landscaping and roadwork projects.

Waste products that were formerly dumped as landfill are now used to create garden compost,
recycled paper and cardboard and rubble for road making and building foundations. Recovered
plastics and metals are even exported for processing and re-use overseas. As well as providing a
convenient one-stop waste delivery location for individuals, businesses and councils, the Wingfield
Waste & Recycling Centre enables companies to collaborate to ensure that “contaminated” materials
are delivered to the business best equipped to manage that waste stream.

Site manager Kevin Harding, who has worked at the Wingfield precinct for the past 17 years, said
there was a common misconception that Wingfield had closed in 2004, when the landfill operation was
shut down. “Wingfield is operating, bigger, better and more productively than ever before,” he said.
“The big difference now is that the waste from nearly nine of every 10 delivery trucks is recycled in
some way or another. That’s a huge environmental benefit.”

Mr. Harding said the Wingfield Waste & Recycling Centre had attracted international attention.
“Visitors are amazed at how advanced we are in recycling and landfill land management,” he said.
“Wingfield is definitely seen as a trendsetter in international waste management. We take it for
granted, but this centre has set the standard in Australia as an integrated recycling operation.”