The South Australian Government in May 2007 released a Metropolitan Adelaide Industrial Land Strategy for public consultation. The Strategy nominates significant land holdings earmarked for the Gillman Eco-Industrial Precinct as potentially suitable for industrial land development. It is envisaged that the development of the Gillman Eco-Industrial Precinct will provide opportunities to target broader resource recovery and environmental industries in line with growing markets. Industries utilising resources generated by the WERM Centre as inputs would be ideally located in the precinct and may include:

• Power generation (further to current landfill gas extraction and power generation by Energy Developments Ltd);
• Water and wastewater utilisation;
• Recycled glass processing and manufacturing;
• Granulated plastics production and manufacturing;
• Paper and cardboard pulping and production;
• Premixed concrete batching utilising recycled product;
• Renewable and waste to energy production;
• Recycled organics processing and soil conditioner production.

The success of the Eco-Industrial precinct will be enhanced by encouraging the development of complementary operations within the precinct, allowing the on-site manufacture of value added products from waste stream inputs. It is also envisaged that in the longer term networks of direct connections between associated businesses in the Eco-Industrial Precinct will be established to transport product streams and resource inputs between interlinked businesses. A synergy cluster approach such as this will serve to maximise the profitability of site partners by shortening physical supply and disposal lines.

In addition to the stage one WERM Centre development, which is well underway, a further 350 hectares of land are proposed for reclamation and industrial land development. The Precinct has the potential to yield some 300 allotments, providing a medium to long term supply of well-located, serviced land for industrial development.

In the short to medium term, the development of the remaining 60 hectares of the Industrial Resource Recovery Zone has been identified as a priority. This includes a parcel of land to the north of the existing WERM Centre, which will ultimately form part of the WERM Centre. A further 30 hectares of land to the north of the WERM Centre will be developed for coastal management.

A Preliminary Development Feasibility Report, completed in 2004, confirmed the technical and financial feasibility of the Gillman Eco-Industrial Precinct development concept.  However it also identified a number of development constraints, including natural hazards such as sea flooding, storm flooding and acid sulphate soils, that need to be responsibly managed.

To progress the development of the Eco-Industrial Precinct, a Natural Disasters Risk Assessment and Concept Design for the Precinct is currently being finalised. The risk assessment assumes full development in line with the Gillman Eco-Industrial Precinct Concept Plan and aims to identify, quantify and address all naturally occurring hazards to the Precinct development concept. Trial hazard mitigation measures in association with the first stages of land reclamation activities were commenced at the end of 2006.

Although landfill operations at the Wingfield site ceased in December 2004, the WERM Centre will continue to offer all of the waste disposal services customers have been provided in the past, but with a host of new benefits. The WERM Centre demonstrates that the end of landfill operations do not spell the end of waste management and recycling opportunities for the Adelaide City Council and the specialist waste management operators who will occupy the precinct.

The WERM Centre is being developed with a focus on best practice waste and environmental management and is set to become a benchmark for environmentally sustainable resource recovery and the leading waste management facility of its type in South Australia. The larger Gillman Eco-Industrial Precinct, a cooperative initiative of Local and State Governments, is at the forefront of industrial land developments in South Australia and offers significant economic and environmental benefits for the State.