Kemps Creek SAWT Advanced Resource Recovery Technology (ARRT) Facility

Kemps Creek SAWT Advanced Resource Recovery Technology (ARRT) Facility is an Alternative Waste Treatment project located in Kemps Creek, approximately 40km west of the Sydney central business district in New South Wales. It was registered in June 2013. While the exact project area is unlisted, the facility operates within a broader, established industrial and resource recovery precinct.

Alternative Waste Treatment projects involve diverting eligible mixed solid waste away from traditional landfills. Standard requirements under this methodology dictate that the diverted waste must be processed at a specialised facility using enclosed composting or biomethanation (anaerobic digestion) technologies. By processing municipal and commercial solid waste in this manner, the project mitigates the significant methane greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise be generated as the organic materials decay anaerobically in a standard landfill.

The Kemps Creek area is situated on the Cumberland Plain of Western Sydney, a region generally characterised by moderate rainfall and heavy clay soils derived from Wianamatta shale. While the regional land use historically featured rural grazing and agriculture, it has heavily transitioned into an area dominated by waste management operations, large-scale industrial facilities, and the developing Western Sydney airport infrastructure.

This project is operated by Veolia Recycling & Recovery ANZ Pty Limited. An interesting note is that the facility originally began under a now-revoked Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) method designed for diverting legacy waste before transitioning to the 2015 methodology. It was awarded a carbon abatement contract in April 2015. According to the Clean Energy Regulator, the project successfully completed this contract in December 2021, delivering a total of 285,247 fixed Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to the Commonwealth.