“After the Telegraph Road site closed, the tip was moved south to Roghan Road, behind where Hidden World Playground now stands. An unsealed section of Roghan Road first had to be widened and sealed. From 15 January 1985 this new site accepted residential, commercial and industrial waste from 6.30 a.m. to 6 p.m.”1 It was expected that “About 150 commercial and industrial trucks, as well as household traffic, will use the tip each day. … Burning-off would be prohibited. … Ald Atkinson said commercial use of the Roghan Road tip would begin about August [1987] and was expected to continue for at least two years, before being developed into extensive sports and recreation fields.”2
As it turned out, the tip stopped receiving hardfill in March 2000 (13 years), remediation was completed in 2002 (15 years) and a suggestion that sports facilities would be built in 2005 was never realised.
As part of the landfill’s rehabilitation, a system of pipes and wells was installed beneath the clay capping to extract gases produced by the decaying waste. A proposal was made to see the gas captured, converted and used as an energy source. It was expected that there would be 10-15 years’ supply of power going to the grid from the site.
Under the gas-for-power initiative, gas was used “to provide a clean and green source of energy, reduce odours and help prevent methane from escaping into the atmosphere”.3 The Council started generating 2 MW electricity from the old landfill’s methane. Liberal Lord Mayor Campbell Newman officially opened the plant on 8 September 2004, saying it was expected to last for twenty years, depending on how much gas was produced.4 In 2018 LGI installed a biogas flare and gas extraction infrastructure at this site. The gas has been burnt in a ‘flare’ since then.”5
After the closing of the Roghan Road site, rubbish including old tires, car bodies and old refrigerators was illegally dumped in the bushland at the end of Roghan Road, which at that time finished around Odense Street. As a result, this site was one of the focal points of the Clean Up Australia Day campaign in 2001. Less than a year later, it was again strewn with rubbish. Today a sign remains near the western boundary of the former landfill site on Roghan Road warning transgressors of a potential $13000 fine for illegal dumping.