Mount Scobie (Kyabram) Transfer Station
Published by Sustainability Victoria, August 2016. One of five case studies published alongside Sustainability Victoria’s Guide to Better Practice at Resource Recovery Centres. Rawtec contributed to this work.
Summary published
A $748,400 rebuild in the Shire of Campaspe cut landfill tonnage from about 1,100 tonnes a year to about 900. That is an 18% reduction, and roughly 200 tonnes a year now recycled instead of buried.
It is the only case study in the series with a clean before-and-after number, which is what makes it useful. Most facility upgrades are justified on projections. This one reported the result.
The build itself took three months. Planning took from August 2014 to completion in November 2015 — so the design phase, not the construction, was the timeline.
Reduction in waste to landfill
Extra material recycled each year
Total project cost
Recycling streams accepted
What changed
Landfill down, recycling up, measured
Approximately 1,100 tonnes a year went to landfill before the upgrade and about 900 tonnes after. Commingled recyclables rose 4% overall. The site serves an estimated population of 13,000.
Sustainability Victoria funded about 28% of it
Of the $748,400 total, Sustainability Victoria contributed $206,890. The rest was the Shire of Campaspe’s.
Twenty-two streams, one operator per shift
The site is owned by the Shire of Campaspe and operated under contract by Ellwaste with a single employee per shift. Recyclables go to a materials recovery facility partnership at Echuca.
The shed is the design decision
A large concrete-floored shed with the gatehouse inside it is the response to a remote, weather-exposed site. A sawtooth platform takes the skip bins; stillages handle the smaller streams.
They built it bigger than they needed
The stated lesson is to design for over-capacity. The document is direct about this: extensive planning and design phases are essential, and the site should be built past current demand.
Opening hours are short and deliberate
8:00am to 12:00pm Tuesday to Friday, and 8:00am to 3:45pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Weekend hours are more than double weekday hours, because that is when the public brings trailer loads.
What they want to add next
Both named as the next streams, subject to markets existing for them.
Without one, the tonnage figures in this case study remain estimates. A weighbridge is what turns an 18% claim into a measured number.
Space to show the public what happens to material after it leaves, which the guide in this series treats as core infrastructure rather than an extra.
A wind and rain control, and the same issue Anglesea and Wycheproof both raised independently.
Tonnages are stated in the source as approximations — “approximately 1,100”, “approximately 900”, “an estimated 200 tonnes” — and the site had no weighbridge at the time of publication.
The rest of the series
Four more Victorian facilities and the guide behind the series.
The case study lists all 22 streams and the materials excluded, including the 300 millimetre limit on logs and stumps.
Planning a facility upgrade?
Most facility projects start with someone who already knows the site needs to change and needs the evidence to get it funded. If that is you, we would like to hear from you.