Singleton City Council faced rapidly increasing leachate volumes following several unusually wet years.

With its usual disposal pathway no longer available, the Council was forced to haul leachate hundreds of kilometres at significant cost.

BeneTerra’s mobile EPA-licensed solution provided a compliant, lowrisk and cost-effective alternative that permanently removed more than 1.6 million litres of leachate onsite within just five weeks.

At a Glance

  • 1,625,893 litres of leachate permanently removed
  • Site setup in under 1 day
  • Air emissions well below EPA thresholds
  • NSW EPA site audit passed
  • > $1 million saved compared to haulage
  • Project completed in 5 weeks
  • 30,000 km of trucking avoided (75 tanker movements eliminated)

Client Context

Singleton City Council operates a regional landfill with limited leachate storage capacity. After several wetter-than-average seasons, the landfill became saturated, increasing leachate generation well beyond typical levels. The site’s only available storage pond holds approximately 2 ML, meaning the Council relied heavily on tankering leachate to a neighbouring council’s sewerage treatment plant.

That option abruptly ceased when the water utility revised its acceptance criteria, prohibiting leachate containing PFAS from outside its LGA. With no local facility able to receive the material, the Council was forced to haul leachate to a licensed facility near Sydney—a financially and operationally unsustainable solution.

The Council needed a compliant, onsite alternative that could quickly reduce volumes, eliminate excessive haulage, and avoid major capital investment.

The Challenge

Singleton Council’s challenge involved three compounding issues:

  • Loss of local disposal options due to PFAS restrictions
  • Long-distance haulage of several hundred kilometres per load
  • Rapidly increasing leachate volume with limited onsite storage

Transporting leachate to Sydney was costly, time-consuming, and created avoidable environmental and safety risks. The Council needed a solution that could be deployed quickly, operate within NSW EPA requirements, and permanently reduce leachate volume without adding operational complexity.

Beneterra’s Solution

BeneTerra is the only provider in NSW with a mobile leachate treatment licence (EPL 21343). This licence allows BeneTerra to operate BeneVap systems directly on a client’s landfill without the client needing to modify its own EPA licence or manage regulatory interactions.

For this project, BeneTerra mobilised a BV300 BeneVap unit (“Rhonda”), a fully self-contained submerged-combustion vaporiser mounted on a semi-trailer. Key advantages included:

  • Fast, Simple Deployment
  • Small footprint (approx. 15m × 6m)
  • Setup completed in less than 1 day
  • No civil works or intermediate tanks required
  • Plug-and-play 80 kVA generator for power
  • High-Temperature Submerged Combustion

The BeneVap’s combustion chamber exceeds 1,000°C, enabling selective vaporisation of water while retaining all contaminants—including PFAS—in the residual concentrate. This allows permanent removal of leachate volume while managing contaminants safely onsite.

  • FLEXIBLE FUEL OPTIONS

    BeneVap systems can run on landfill gas, waste oil, biofuels or diesel. Singleton Council elected to supply diesel, enabling use of the off-road fuel rebate and keeping fuel cost efficient.

  • REGULATORY ASSURANCE
    • BeneTerra handled all EPA approvals, monitoring and reporting.
    • Council had no direct EPA engagement for this project.
    • The site passed a full NSW EPA audit during operations.
  • IMPLEMENTATION

    Although setup was completed in a single day, the full deployment included:

    • Site Establishment
    • Crane placement of discharge bin, exhaust stacks, site office and IBCs
    • HDPE bunding installed beneath key components for spill protection
    • Floating foot-valve pump system drawing leachate directly from the pond
    • Generator connection—no electricians required
  • OPERATIONS
    • The BV300 operated continuously for five weeks
    • Regular sampling of raw and residual leachate
    • Independent, NATA-accredited air emissions testing—results well below licence thresholds
    • EPA site audit conducted and passed
    • Nine regional councils visited the site to observe the system in operation

    By the end of the project, the pond level was too low for pumps to continue operating—a clear indication that permanent volume removal had been achieved.

Results & Impact

Operational Outcomes

  • 1.6 million litres of leachate permanently removed
  • Pond level reduced to well below operational threshold
  • System ran autonomously, away from daily landfill operations

Environmental & Compliance Outcome

  • EPA site audit passed with no corrective actions
  • All air emissions measured below regulatory thresholds
  • Avoided 75 tanker loads requiring road transport – reducing road risk, emissions and traffic impacts

Financial Outcomes

  • More than $1 million saved compared to long-distance haulage
  • Simple “cents-per-litre” pricing with no hidden costs
  • Council did not require new EPA permits or variations

This project demonstrated how mobile leachate treatment can remove risk, reduce cost and deliver strong compliance outcomes without the need for permanent infrastructure.