DOWNER TURNING RECYCLABLES INTO ROADS
Downer has announced it will build an asphalt manufacturing facility in northern Tasmania, using a high proportion of recyclable material.
The $10 million facility will replace an existing asphalt plant that’s reaching the end of its service life, allowing Downer to triple its hourly production rate.
The facility will help communities turn their waste products into value-added material for the production of road surfacing products, avoiding the use of virgin quarry material.
The new plant will include the production of Downer’s Reconophalt, a road surfacing product incorporating material that would otherwise end up in landfill, such as soft plastics, ground glass from domestic recycling, road millings and recycled asphalt paving and waste toner.
Since 2018, the production of Reconophalt has diverted the equivalent of 6,476,000 plastic bag from landfill, along with 2,629,000 glass bottles.
The new plant is expected to be commissioned early in 2023.
AUTHOR: Tom O’Keane