Developing industrial water reuse synergies in Port Melbourne: cost effectiveness, barriers and opportunities
Introduction
Industrial symbiosis is perhaps the best-known application of industrial ecology principles. It deals with the exchange of by-products, water, energy, and process wastes among closely situated firms (Chertow, 2000, Chertow, 2007, Chertow and Lombardi, 2005, Geng et al., 2009, Geng and Cote, 2004, van Schaik et al., 2010). Because of the many links between firms, an industrial area is transformed into an ‘industrial ecosystem’. Synergistic links between firms are labelled ‘industrial symbiosis’ as defined by Chertow: “Industrial symbiosis engages traditionally separate industries in a collective approach to competitive advantage involving physical exchange of materials, energy, water, and/or by-products (Chertow, 2000). The keys to industrial symbiosis are collaboration and the synergistic possibilities offered by geographic proximity” (Shi et al., 2010). Localised industrial ecology in the form of industrial symbiosis could also have the broader benefit of linking to regional development (Deutz and Gibbs, 2008). The related term ‘regional synergies’ was formulated in 2005 arising from a study seeking to encourage and facilitate the greater utilisation of regional synergy opportunities to improve the overall eco-efficiency of resource processing intensive regions (Bossilkov et al., 2005). The study found several other terms and definitions for Industrial Symbiosis, with a common implementation aim at ‘creating a system for trading material, energy, and water by-products among companies, usually within a park, neighbourhood, or region’ (Lowe, 2001). In the present paper, the authors use the term ‘regional synergies’, as it better emphasises the broader cooperative organisational focus of the activity based on the synergistic use of water, energy or by-products (rather than giving primary focus to the synergistic use of materials and energy via collaboration).
Both industrial symbiosis and regional synergies have a focus on the benefits of promoting inter-firm exchanges, for waste, energy and water, however less attention has been given to how the waste hierarchy often phrased as ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ (Cohen-Rosenthal, 2004) applies differently with waste, energy and water. For waste, one can minimise resource use on-site and then with whatever is left as a solid waste product, seek to find a use at a neighbouring firm for the product. Similarly for energy, recovery and use of low grade heat from one processes for another is common. By contrast, with water there is a greater tension between reducing on-site use though water use efficiency (which is generally cheaper and conserves the water resource in the first place), if there is a water recycling or reuse synergy, which created a symbiotic relationship with a neighbouring firm. In addition to providing safe and reliable water supplies, Australia’s National Water Initiative seeks to increase water use efficiency and as Lowe (1997) notes, “The trading of wastes as by-products is not a good in itself if there are more effective waste reduction solutions upstream.” The tension can manifest where using less water on-site leads to an increasing concentration in wastewater discharges, which in turn requires greater treatment costs (and resources). In integrated resources planning for urban water (White et al., 2006a, White et al., 2006b, White and Fane, 2002, Turner et al., 2008, Mitchell et al., 2007) a cost effectiveness framework is used to rank the desirability of efficiency versus recycling options for conserving water in the city and the options proposed in this paper will be discussed in this context, together with barriers and opportunities for regional synergy development. This contrasts the industrial symbiosis and industrial ecology literature where, even with a water focus (such as van Beers et al., 2008 or Geng and Yi, 2006 who even mentions integrated resources planning) there is little discussion of how to reconcile trade offs between options promoting recycling versus options promoting efficiency.
Whilst approximately 70% of water in Australia is used in agriculture and irrigation, 15% in industry and 15% in residential demand, in urban centres where water is generally sourced from localised catchments unconnected from major river systems, the majority of water is used by residential customers (householders), rather than industry. In the Melbourne area, annual water consumption is approximately 470 GL divided between the following uses: 60% in residential homes, 30% in industry and commercial uses, 10% in non-revenue water (Our Water Our Future, 2006). Consequently, water saving initiatives are directed towards both residential consumers and industry, and the relative costs for saving water in each sector become highly relevant to which options the government-owned utility pursues (which serves both residential and commercial/industrial sectors). Urban water scarcity from drought, climate change and an increasing population are driving a range of water saving options to be explored and implemented in Melbourne and indeed throughout Australian cities (White et al., 2006b, Our Water Our Future, 2006, Turner et al., 2008). Options developed by government-owned water utilities in Australian cities to reduce water use include: encouraging the uptake and installation of water efficient toilets, low flow showerheads and water efficient washing machines; the installation of raintanks in homes and industry; assisting industry to save water through efficiency and recycling initiatives; and the construction of desalination plants in addition to the existing rain-fed water supply system.
One strategy to reduce the industrial demand on the centralised supply system would be to recycle water between companies within a heavy industrial area such as Port Melbourne. This initial activity could also encourage companies to pursue further initiatives to reduce impacts related to energy and waste. A scoping study of the technologies, costs, barriers and opportunities for water reuse synergies forms the focus of this paper. Water reuse synergies have been identified and successfully implemented at other industrial areas in Australia, most notably in Kwinana, Western Australia (van Beers et al., 2008) and similarities and differences between the barriers and drivers in both locations are discussed in this paper. The Kwinana Industrial Area in Western Australia is used a comparison example in this paper as is was found to be one of the best international examples of regional synergy development, in terms of the level and maturity of the industry involvement and collaboration, and the commitment to future regional resource synergy projects (Bossilkov et al., 2005).
The aims of this paper are to:
- 1.
Explore potential industrial water reuse synergies identified in the Port Melbourne area and the process by which they were developed;
- 2.
Evaluate the role of a cost effectiveness framework in prioritising reuse synergy options relative to other water saving options in the urban context;
- 3.
Discuss the barriers and drivers for implementation of industrial water reuse synergies in Port Melbourne, and contrast them with the barriers and drivers in Kwinana, Western Australia;
- 4.
Recommend generalised areas for further research – informed by the industrial symbiosis literature – to overcome barriers and promote the appropriate development of regional synergies.
Section snippets
Background to Port Melbourne case study
This project was initiated by the Victorian Smart Water Fund1 to explore the potential for industrial ecology opportunities in Melbourne. Following a literature and data review and consultation with industries in different
Results and discussion
This section presents the options and technologies identified, their cost effectiveness as well as an introduction to barriers and opportunities associated with option implementation.
Barriers and opportunities – comparison between Port Melbourne and Kwinana Industrial Area (KIA)
Valuable lessons can be learned from regional synergy experiences in Kwinana. The diverse range of identified barriers and opportunities at KIA has contributed to the long lasting cooperation between companies, facilitated by the Kwinana Industries Council (KIC) which addresses a broad range of issues common to the industries in the area. KIA is recognised as a best practice example in implementation of regional synergies, characterised with its maturity, number of resource exchanges and the
Plan for future regional synergy development
This paper has provided an overview of the Port Melbourne scoping study of water reuse opportunities. By contrasting barriers and opportunities for regional synergy development between Kwinana and Port Melbourne, insights can be gained into the strategy which can lead to successful implementation. This has been proposed in the following stages:
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Establish Port Melbourne Industrial Ecology working group
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Further review of costs, technologies and funding with utility and stakeholders
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Option and
Conclusions and future recommendations
The results of this study demonstrated that there are at least five possible synergy reuse options that appear to be technically feasible, however further pilot testing of input water quality would be required for receiving plants. All options require a financial subsidy to be viable and there is the potential to secure such assistance from the government and utilities. The use of a cost effectiveness framework to evaluate options shows that the $/kL increases with smaller plant size and also
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Victorian Smart Water Fund for funding this project; Mike Mcrae-Williams (Hatlar Consulting) for developing equipment costs; Dick van Beers (Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing, Curtin University of Technology) for valuable research contributions to earlier stages of this project; company participants for their time and willing involvement, namely, Troy White (Kraft), Greg Crawford (Boral) Paramjeet Thaker (Symex), Simon Renton (GM Holden), Kevin Greaves (GM
Dr Damien Giurco is a Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney with research interests in industrial ecology and resource futures in the water, energy and minerals sectors. Damien holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Hons) and Bachelor Science both from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from the University of Sydney.
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2019, Resources, Conservation and RecyclingCitation Excerpt :Furthermore, same-group actors at different geographies may have different expectations as well. In some EIP cases, industrial actors, such as Kalundborg (Valentine, 2016; Chertow, 2007; Branson, 2016), Industrial Eco-System Project (Lambert and Boons, 2002; Heeres et al., 2004) and Kwinana (Chertow and Ehrenfeld, 2012; Giurco et al., 2011; MacLachlan, 2013) took the lead in initiating successful symbiotic exchanges in collaboration with local and regional governmental institutions. They expected and then realised that industrial symbiosis could bring substantial economic and environmental profits and have been willing to invest in such projects.
Dr Damien Giurco is a Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney with research interests in industrial ecology and resource futures in the water, energy and minerals sectors. Damien holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Hons) and Bachelor Science both from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from the University of Sydney.
Albena Bossilkov is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence in Cleaner Production at Curtin University focussing on cleaner production, eco-efficiency and industrial ecology. This has involved development of a regional eco-efficiency opportunity assessment methodology and toolkit which have been applied to identify waste exchange opportunities for by-products, water and energy in various industrial areas in Australia and internationally. Albena holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Hons) and a postgraduate degree in Cleaner Production and is currently studying towards a Doctoral degree. In addition she has almost 10 years experience in Printed Circuits manufacturing at support and management positions (quality assurance and environmental management).
James Patterson contributed to this research whilst working as a Research Consultant at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney. James’ research focuses on Integrated Resources Planning (IRP) for urban water, community processes and participation in decision-making, sustainability at the local community and local government scale. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) and Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental) from the University of New South Wales where he received first class honours and the University Medal.
Alex Kazaglis contributed to this research whilst working as a Senior Research Consultant at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney. His research experience is focussed on sustainability and urban water management. Alex holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons I) and Bachelor of Science from the University of New South Wales and a Master of Science in Environment & Development from the London School of Economics. Alex is currently Senior Analyst, Energy Use in Buildings & Industry at the UK Committee on Climate Change Secretariat.