Eastern Creek UR-3R Facility

Eastern Creek UR-3R Facility is an Alternative Waste Treatment (AWT) project located in Eastern Creek, approximately 35km west of the Sydney CBD in New South Wales. It was registered in April 2013 and operates within a specifically defined industrial facility footprint rather than covering a broad rural land mass.

Alternative Waste Treatment projects generate carbon credits by diverting mixed solid municipal waste away from standard landfills, preventing the organic matter from decomposing and emitting methane into the atmosphere. The standard requirements for this methodology involve actively processing the diverted waste at a specialized facility. This specific project utilizes an enclosed composting technology (known as the UR-3R process) to treat the waste, capturing biogas for renewable energy generation and recovering valuable recyclable materials.

The Eastern Creek area is a major industrial and waste management precinct situated within the urban footprint of Greater Western Sydney. The broader Western Sydney region generally experiences moderate annual rainfall of around 700-800mm. The natural landscape is typically characterized by clay-based soils derived from Wianamatta shale, though the immediate project area is heavily developed for commercial and industrial land use.

This project initially registered under an older Carbon Farming Initiative method before formally transitioning to the 2015 Alternative Waste Treatment methodology. A notable commercial achievement for the facility was the successful completion of a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC101978) with the Clean Energy Regulator. Contracted during the November 2015 auction, the facility successfully delivered 872,037 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to the Commonwealth before fulfilling the contract in November 2022. In addition to generating carbon abatement, the facility actively produces certified organic growth media and exports green power from the bio-digestion of Sydney's municipal solid waste.