Police hoping luck will help them find landfill remains

Police scouring an Adelaide landfill site for further remains of a man whose dismembered torso was found in a wheelie bin concede luck will need to be on their side.

Search teams converged on the Uleybury site on Monday with the gruesome task of locating the head and limbs of alleged murder victim Geoffrey McLean, whose torso was discovered at a vacant block at Salisbury South in October.

The 55-year-old had been reported missing several weeks earlier.

Four people have so far been charged over his death, two with murder and two with assisting an offender.

Detective Superintendent Des Bray said the missing body parts were stuffed into garbage bags and dumped in the collection bins of people who lived near those allegedly responsible for Mr McLean's death.

Investigations established where some 70 per cent of the rubbish in the relevant neighbourhoods was sent.

It's believed the dead man's limbs were packed into large bales similar to those used to export wool, each weighing about 1.5 tonnes.

Supt Bray said on Monday he expected police would remain at the landfill for several days.

"If Geoffrey's remains are in those bales, I'm confident we will find them but the reality is that we do need a little bit of luck because we know that 30 per cent of the rubbish from that area, we do not know where it's gone," he told reporters.

"But, with the resources we've got and the area we have identified, we have a good chance."

The site takes about 86,000 tonnes of household and commercial waste each year.

Search teams in two shifts hope to examine up to 150 bales, checking the contents using rakes and other tools as well as by hand if necessary.

The process involves site authorities dragging up to six bales at a time into the open, where they can be systematically taken apart. 

About 30 officers are involved including major crime detectives, forensic response and scientific specialists, and police academy recruits.

Video footage has also been compiled of numerous individual bags of rubbish being loaded into collection trucks, with the hope they can be cross-checked.   

"I'm confident we've got the right bales but we just need his remains to be in them," Supt Bray said.

"If they are, then I'm sure we'll find them."

Police would also have to consider the possibility they could come away from the search empty-handed and without any obvious way of knowing where else to look, he said.