Erskine Park Landfill Gas Project

Erskine Park Landfill Gas Project is a landfill gas capture and combustion project located at Erskine Park, approximately 42km west of the Sydney CBD in New South Wales. Registered in July 2015, the project operates within an area known for historical quarrying sites that have been repurposed into major waste disposal facilities, commercial warehousing, and industrial logistics hubs.

Landfill gas projects involve the installation, upgrade, or continued operation of a gas collection system designed to capture methane generated from decomposing organic waste. Under the Carbon Farming Initiative-Landfill Gas Methodology Determination 2015, the standard requirements involve capturing this gas and combusting it, typically via a flare or an electricity generation engine. Combusting the methane converts it into carbon dioxide, which possesses a significantly lower global warming potential. This specific project manages gas from both legacy and non-legacy waste at the site.

The region around Erskine Park in Western Sydney is situated on the Cumberland Plain. It experiences a temperate climate with moderate, reliable rainfall. The local environmental conditions are typically characterised by clay and podzolic soils derived from the underlying Wianamatta shale, which are historically common to the area's brickmaking and quarrying industries before landfilling commenced.

This project transitioned from a revoked early Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) method to continue its operations under the 2015 framework. Interestingly, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) procured carbon offsets from this specific facility as part of its 2019 Carbon Neutral Program; this complemented a corporate loan provided to Cleanaway, which manages the Enviroguard Pty Limited site, to accelerate best-practice sustainable waste management. The project successfully completed its initial carbon abatement contract (CAC102524) in May 2020 and generated a total volume of 230,922 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).