Speakers

Speaker 1 - S1 (Li Choong, Specialist Service Planner, Melbourne Water)

[music]

[On-screen visual: aerial view of the Western Treatment Plant treatment lagoons]

S1: Today, we’re at the Western Treatment Plant. The Western Treatment Plant treats about 50% of Metropolitan Melbourne’s sewage.

[On-screen text: Li Choong, Melbourne Water, Specialist Service Planner]

[On-screen visual: Li on-site at the Western Treatment Plant, followed by shots of treatment infrastructure and lagoon covers.]

S1: So wastewater treatment processes do use quite a lot of electricity, and at Melbourne Water we actually collect biogas, which we then convert into renewable electricity. And we collect biogas via these covered lagoons, and that gets transported to biogas power plants, and through that we can generate renewable electricity.

S1: It’s really important for Melbourne Water to play a role in mitigating climate change and it’s fantastic that we can do this using a byproduct of our wastewater treatment process.

[On-screen visual: Li talks to a colleague at their desk. A Melbourne Water electric vehicle drives across the site, parking next to a treatment lagoon.]

S1: The Western Treatment Plant is a really special place. It’s a Ramsar listed site, which means that it’s a site of high important biodiversity values.

[On-screen visual: Li gets out of the car and observes a flock of birds flying over the treatment lagoons.]

S1: And I really like working here and working on these kind of renewable energy projects, because you can see the environmental values that we’re trying to protect right on site whenever we come here.

[On-screen text: Our path to net zero – reducing our emissions]

[Melbourne Water logo]