Banksia Landfill Gas Abatement Project

Banksia Landfill Gas Abatement Project is a landfill gas capture project located at the Banksia Road Landfill in Crooked Brook, approximately 15km southeast of the major regional city of Bunbury in Western Australia. It was registered in July 2015. While the exact project area size is unknown, it operates within the bounds of a large, active putrescible waste facility managed by Cleanaway Solid Waste Pty Ltd.

Landfill gas capture projects involve the installation of infrastructure to collect methane gas generated by decomposing organic waste within a landfill. Standard methodology requirements mandate that this captured methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, is combusted via flaring or used to generate electricity, which safely converts it into less impactful carbon dioxide while directly reducing emissions. This particular project actively captures and combusts gas from both legacy and non-legacy waste.

The Dardanup and surrounding Ferguson Valley area is well known for agricultural land uses, including dairy farming, beef grazing, forestry, and viticulture. Located in a topographic transition zone between the Swan Coastal Plain and the Whicher Scarp, the region experiences a Mediterranean climate classified by high winter rainfall and hot, dry summers. Soils in this local area typically consist of sandy loams, lateritic gravels, and clays.

The project has transitioned through multiple methodology variations, upgrading from a revoked 2012 legacy waste method to the 2015 Landfill Gas methodology (Compilation No. 1) in August 2021. In May 2016, Cleanaway secured a fixed-delivery Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC163129) with the Australian Government. This contract was successfully fulfilled and officially completed in July 2022 after the project delivered a total of 791,855 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to the Commonwealth. Outside of carbon abatement, the Banksia Road Landfill continues to expand its broader environmental management capabilities; it recently received regulatory amendments from the WA Government to safely accept and store PFAS-contaminated soils in specially engineered landfill cells.