Banksia Landfill Gas Abatement Project

The Banksia Landfill Gas Abatement Project is a landfill gas recovery operation located at the Banksia Road Waste Management Facility in Crooked Brook, Western Australia. The site is situated approximately 10 kilometers southeast of the major regional city of Bunbury and about 4 kilometers from the town of Dardanup. Registered in July 2015, the project operates under the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) scheme and is managed by Cleanaway Solid Waste Pty Ltd.

Landfill gas projects involve the installation of gas collection systems, comprising vertical extraction wells and horizontal piping, to capture methane generated by the anaerobic decomposition of organic waste. Under the 2015 Landfill Gas Methodology, this captured gas is combusted to convert potent methane into less harmful carbon dioxide. For the Banksia project, the captured gas is destroyed via flaring and internal combustion engines, which allows the facility to generate electricity for on-site operations while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The project sits within the South West region of Western Australia, an area characterized by a Mediterranean climate with distinct wet winters and dry summers. The surrounding landscape supports a mix of land uses, including state forestry operations (pine plantations) and agricultural activities such as cattle grazing and dairying. Environmental assessments of the site describe the local soils as having high erodibility, often requiring careful management during rehabilitation and capping phases to prevent surface erosion.

The Banksia Road facility is a Class III putrescible landfill that accepts municipal, commercial, and industrial waste. Notably, this project is a "transitioning project," meaning it originally operated under the earlier Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) "legacy waste" method before moving to the current Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) methodology. This transition allows the project to claim credits for abatement achieved from both historical waste deposits (legacy) and newer waste streams (non-legacy).