Casino Bio-hub Project

Casino Bio-hub Project is a wastewater treatment project located at Casino in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, approximately 30km west of Lismore. It was registered in September 2024 by Casino Biohub Pty Ltd. While the exact project area is unknown, it involves the construction of an advanced 50-million-litre covered anaerobic lagoon at the Casino Food Co-op's abattoir on San Marla farm.

The project operates under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative-Domestic, Commercial and Industrial Wastewater) Methodology Determination 2015 (Compilation No. 3). Wastewater treatment projects of this type require capturing methane-rich biogas generated from the anaerobic digestion of effluent and safely destroying it, typically using a flaring device, rather than allowing it to vent into the atmosphere.

The Casino region is widely known as the "Beef Capital of Australia" with extensive land use dedicated to cattle grazing, dairy farming, and meat processing. The local environment is characterised by high summer-dominant rainfall (averaging roughly 1,000–1,100mm annually) and fertile alluvial and basalt-derived clay soils.

This specific bio-hub is being installed to replace the deep open anaerobic lagoons that previously treated the abattoir's industrial wastewater. Developed in partnership with LMS Energy, the captured biogas is expected to abate roughly 35,000 tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions each year, which avoids over 98% of the facility's Scope 1 effluent emissions. In future stages, there are plans to convert this captured biogas into renewable electricity to power the site's boilers and other on-site infrastructure.