Project Overview

Established in 1936, Booth Transport is a family-owned company that provides freight, container and bulk liquid transportation, warehousing, and logistics services nationally.

In 2018 Booth Transport commenced an incredibly ambitious environmental protection project in Victoria’s Moira Shire – the Strathmerton Water Treatment Plant.

The 4500 square metre Strathmerton plant is the company’s milk logistics and distribution hub. Previously waste water generated from washing the milk tanks and storage silos was transported off site for disposal.

Process

The initial designs of the milk transfer station had all liquid waste being trucked offsite for external treatment. However, aware this wasn’t a viable  long-term solution, Booth began investigating how to better deal with the waste water. After exploring standard and proven technology, Booth set their ambition higher ambition – what is no one else doing? Their extensive research took them to Chile, after which the designs for the reimagined Strathmerton Water Treatment Plant begun.

Upgrade Details

The Strathmerton Water Treatment Plant is an Australian-first environmental protection project, using worms as its engine, increasing efficiency in waste management and dramatically decreasing the company’s environmental impact.

This new technology combines a worm farm, where water is filtered for dairy proteins to be ingested by worms, and desalination.

At capacity the plant will see a reduction of 3000 tonnes of carbon emission and an additional 121,000 kilolitres of recycled water put into the irrigation system each year. The plant has the potential to process waste from neighbouring processing systems, other than milk, offering even more support for local farmers and savings to local businesses.

The project was funded by an Environmental Upgrade Agreement over 10 years.