The Melbourne Brooklyn Industrial Services Hub is home to the Brooklyn treatment plant, a facility that is licenced to receive and process hazardous waste in all forms including packaged waste, sludges, liquids and soils.
The process for the treatment plant can be divided in two stages:
- Stage 1: The conventional treatment
- Stage 2: The advanced treatment (Thermal Desorption Unit)
The recent addition of the second advanced treatment stage has enabled Veolia to achieve the highest order of treatment in Victoria according to the waste hierarchy.
Brooklyn Conventional Treatment Plant – Stage 1
Veolia has been operating a liquid and hazardous and chemical waste treatment facility in Brooklyn since 1997 and is licensed by the Victorian EPA to receive a variety of prescribed waste streams, including contaminated soils. The facility services numerous Victorian industrial sectors, from metals manufacturing, automotive, petrochemical, food and beverage and quarantine waste.
A range of processing technologies are available at the facility and includes:
- Chemical stabilisation of contaminated solids
- Physico-chemical treatment of sludges
- Resource recovery including decanting, crushing and recycling.
The output of the Liquid Treatment Plant is a Prescribed Industrial Waste filter cake which is then treated by the thermal plant located on the same site.
Brooklyn Advanced Treatment Plant – Stage 2
Thermal Desorption Plant
Thermal desorption is an advanced treatment for hazardous waste streams. This process utilises heat to increase the volatility of contaminants so that they can be separated from waste materials such as sludge or filter cake. Contaminants are then recovered and when possible beneficial reuse outlets are found.
In 2015, Veolia, with the support of the HazWaste fund, has installed an advanced Indirect Thermal Desorption Unit (ITDU) 5 at the Brooklyn site to treat a variety of hazardous waste streams. The primary objective of this technology is to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and to deliver better environmental outcomes.
The volatilised contaminants are then collected for beneficial reuse or thermal destruction based on the type of contamination. Veolia’s Thermal Desorption Plant ensures both short-term and long-term protection to human health and the environment by removing concentrations of toxins in hazardous waste.
The outputs produced include:
- Liquid hydrocarbons for reuse, further treatment or disposal
- Water for reuse within the Veolia plant
- Inert material for reuse, further treatment or disposal.
Advanced treatment for a variety of hazardous waste streams
Ensuring both short and long term positive health outcomes for people and the environment
Where possible, resources are recycled or reused