A partnership between CEA’s Environmental Solutions division and Austrian plant and equipment manufacturer Thoeni is laying the groundwork for better value solutions in organics recycling.
CEA has built a reputation as one of Australia’s leading equipment distributors. With brands such as JCB, Komptech, Dynapac, Ditch Witch and Atlas Copco in tow, the business reaches across industries – from construction to road building to material separation.
In 2020, CEA established the Environmental Solutions division to address what it considered a market gap in organics waste treatment – something a partnership with Austrian biogas plant manufacturer Thoeni Industriebetriebe GmbH is intended to address.
Like CEA, Thoeni is a family-owned business dating back to 1964. Its Thoeni Environmental Engineering division has been converting organic waste to bioenergy for more than 30 years.
CEA and Thoeni have recently signed on to design the technology component of a large organics processing facility in Western Sydney, that is intending to use anaerobic digestion to process commercial food (CO) and food and garden organics (FOGO) waste, and capture the gas generated.
CEA Environmental Solutions Division Manager Sean Galdermans has taken the lead on this new direction for the business – one he says fits with CEA’s established network and reputation for customer service.
“CEA has moved beyond being solely an equipment distributor – we’re also a turnkey waste management solution provider,” he says.
“We’re no longer just who to speak to for a Komptech shredder or a JCB wheel loader. We can help from gate to gate, from the raw material coming in, to the product coming out. From trash-to-treasure.”
Sean has spent his career in the waste industry, with more than 10 years’ experience in markets across the world. He’s spent the past three years with CEA, lending expertise to the new division.
Mitchell Giles, working for the team as a Solution Specialist for Organic waste streams, says the Western Sydney project will showcase the potential for harnessing organic processing for energy.
“I think most players in this space are usually more focused on the composting side – turning organics into compost, soil mixes and other nutrient-rich products,” he says. “Whereas we are integrating a pre-step, or bolt-on, to the process where you can extract the biogas it generates – without diminishing the quality of the compost.”
Mitchell says this biogas is rich in methane, and can be converted into valuable resources such as electricity or biomethane.
“With Thoeni, we are trying to fill that void,” he says. “Anaerobic digestion reflects the natural evolution of the composting market as it matures and follows European trends .”
As composting facilities are becoming more controlled, efficient, and widespread, Mitchell says the next step is exploring how to make such capital-intensive projects provide more “bang-for-buck”.
“We’re harnessing a naturally occurring composting process that’s typically energy-negative and turning it into an energy-positive one. If you put that organic waste in landfill, it would still produce the methane,” he says. “Methane is 25-times more potent than carbon-dioxide, so capturing this biogas and turning it into something valuable is a no-brainer.
Sean says that now, it’s about making it stack up commercially.
“Federal, state, and local governments will have to play a role in legislation, but the trend of ever-increasing gas and electricity prices is certainly playing into the hands of anaerobic digestion as an energy-from-waste solution,” he says.
There is no shortage of examples of this technology already shaking up waste management sectors overseas.
“I’ve been part of projects overseas where the biogas captured on site was converted into electricity for usage on site, or cleaned and compressed as natural gas and fed to the city’s collection vehicles,” Sean says.
“They have garbage trucks powered by the gas produced by the waste, which are then bringing new waste to the facility. That’s a great example of true circular organics processing.
“With CEA and Thoeni’s partnership, we can take big commercial projects in Australia totally off grid, and still generate a surplus of energy that we can feed to neighbouring properties or back to the grid – so hopefully governments will recognise that opportunity.”
While Thoeni might not be a name widely known to the Australian waste industry, Sean says that is likely to change. “Thoeni has mostly been focused on Europe, where it has about 165 facilities up and running,” he says. “But it’s also started growing a presence in North America, as well as China, which is a big emerging market. It’s expanding very quickly.”
Sean says Thoeni’s growth is powered by partnerships with businesses like CEA around the world. He thinks these partnerships will also help develop local expertise to the benefit of the industry.
“It’s more than your typical reseller agreement,” he says. “Thoeni will train our local team to be self-sufficient, they’ll manufacture and supply key componentry, and provide supervision and assistance where needed.”
Sean says this will mean his team can provide local expertise backed up by CEA’s Australia-wide network for parts and support.
“In contrast to delivering a single machine, you’re delivering a system,” he says. “These plants can take quite a long time to start up because it’s a biological process. We’ll be able to have someone from CEA on-site to assist with that commissioning phase and provide training, as well as continued biological support to ensure the project will be a success.”
Given the investment required for these projects, Sean understands that establishing trust is key. “We’re trying to take away as many hurdles as possible, and let customers know that they’re in safe hands, and that their investment will do what it’s supposed to do,” he says.
Sean says CEA’s customers can expect quality equipment combined with the guidance of a local team – one that can work with them through the design phase of a project, experiment with different feedstocks and inputs, and provide the right end-to-end solution.
“That really excites me,” Sean says. “It’s so much more than delivering a machine and handing over the keys and instruction manual. These are systems that are designed to be treating waste for the next 20 years, within an ever-changing waste industry landscape.”
CEA Environmental Solutions has additional partnerships in the pipeline, which Sean says will allow the team to diversify further into materials recovery, construction and demolition, and municipal solid waste facilities.
“We’re building a portfolio that will allow us to pick different partners – or a combination of them – as building blocks for different projects,” he says.
“Our aim is for CEA Environmental Solutions to be a one-stop-shop for anything related to solid waste. The Thoeni partnership is a crucial step in that direction.”