Cairns Regional Council - Portsmith Landfill Gas Project

Cairns Regional Council - Portsmith Landfill Gas Project is a landfill gas capture project located at the closed Portsmith Landfill, situated just a few kilometres south of the Cairns central business district in Far North Queensland. It was registered in February 2014. While the exact project area size is unknown, it encompasses the footprint of the municipal waste facility. The broader Cairns region is well known for tourism, tropical rainforests, and agricultural land use, particularly sugar cane farming.

Landfill gas projects involve the installation of a specialized gas collection system to capture methane produced by the decomposition of organic material within a landfill. Standard methodology requirements dictate that this captured methane, a gas with a very high global warming potential, must be actively combusted. This is typically achieved using a flare or an engine for electricity generation, effectively converting the methane into less potent carbon dioxide.

The local environment in the Cairns area is distinctly tropical, characterized by high annual rainfall and a pronounced wet and dry season. The coastal plains and estuarine areas around Portsmith generally feature alluvial soils, consisting of marine sediments, coastal sands, and clays.

This specific project was established to install a new collection system to capture and flare gas generated from "legacy waste" that was accepted at the facility before 1 July 2012. Interestingly, according to Cairns Regional Council's State of Environment reports, capturing and flaring the methane since 2012 has allowed the council to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), which are directly used to help offset the ongoing operational costs of the closed landfill. Furthermore, the project successfully completed its initial Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC102466) with the Commonwealth in June 2016, delivering exactly 5,383 fixed-delivery ACCUs. As the scheme evolved, the project transitioned its framework in July 2022 to operate under the updated 2015 Landfill Gas methodology determination.