Innovative waste management systems

Environmental Stewardship

Turning glass into sand and food waste into fertiliser. With a combination of innovative solutions, the eco-sensitive Green Island Resort is home to some of Australia’s most innovative waste management practices.

Turning glass into sand and food waste into fertiliser

The eco-sensitive Green Island Resort is home to some of Australia’s most innovative waste management practices.

• The *Food Digester recycling machine installed in 2019 is the first of its kind on an Australian island resort. Waste volume is reduced by 90% by converting food waste into a nutrient-rich organic fertiliser. The remarkable end-use of this organic fertiliser is for local farmlands on the Atherton Tablelands. The other byproduct is sterile water, which by being diverted to the Resort's treatment facility, “closes the loop” with the high quality treated effluent being used primarily on the island for toilet flushing, irrigation and fire fighting reserves. The Food Digester is providing a real win-win for the environment with not only waste averted from landfill, but reduced transport and methane emissions from decomposing organic matter.
• Green Island Resort’s waste management compound also includes a *glass crusher turning glass bottles into sand further reducing volume by 90%, through to improved recycling ability and waste reduction with a *compacter and baler for a variety of waste products including cans, cardboard and plastic for delivery to recycling agents. As the disposal of any solid waste on Green Island is prohibited with all waste taken back to the mainland, the combination of these systems significantly reduces waste volume and averting landfill, and consequently carbon emissions from transport.
• The Resort’s state-of-the-art tertiary sewage treatment plant is one of the most sophisticated of its type in Australia, processing around 30 million litres of treated wastewater annually for reuse on the island. It processes the wastewater from all Resort guest rooms, staff accommodation, day visitor facility toilets, showers and island pools. It also takes wastewater from the other island facilities including Marineland Melanesia, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service Ranger station and the Department of Primary Industry Research Station. The plant must consistently meet stringent environmental and water quality standards to ensure the protection of both the marine and island environments.

* These noted Green Island Resort projects have been undertaken with assistance of the State Government’s Great Barrier Reef Island Resorts Rejuvenation Program's matched funding, 2019.