Planning is underway for a new landfill cell at the Summerhill Waste Management Centre to help meet Newcastle’s future disposal needs.
City of Newcastle (CN) has awarded a tender for the design of the facility, which will be capable of receiving up to three million cubic metres of waste.
The project will become the 10th landfill cell established at the Summerhill site, one of the largest waste management operations in NSW.
CN CEO Jeremy Bath said the venture formed part of council’s long-term strategy for managing waste as the city’s population continues to grow.
“The Summerhill Waste Management Centre is a significant asset that allows us to take responsibility for our city’s waste and innovate its management moving forward,” he explained.
He said planning and development of the new cell would provide Newcastle with additional landfill capacity for about another 10 years.
The project will also form part of broader initiatives aimed at reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill, alongside programs encouraging residents to return, reuse, repair and recycle materials.
Summerhill currently operates in conjunction with the city’s Resource Recovery Centre, which opened in 2019 and has diverted almost 19,000 tonnes of waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill.
Council’s managing director waste services David Witherdin said modern landfill operations at Summerhill used sealed containment cells rather than the open rubbish piles common in the past.
“Our state-of-the-art facilities and best practice landfill processes have replaced the open-air rubbish piles of the past by using the sealed cells as independent containment units,” he stated.
He said the design for the new cell would include environmental management measures such as stormwater controls, contaminated liquid management and landfill gas capture systems.
Captured landfill gas is converted into electricity, helping reduce the site’s carbon impact while maintaining long-term waste disposal capacity.
Work will also update the overall masterplan for the Summerhill site.
The design and master planning phase are expected to be completed in 2027, with a construction tender to follow and staged building works scheduled to begin in 2028.
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