The New South Wales Government has awarded Fulton Hogan a $250,000 grant to upgrade its Eastern Creek asphalt plant, along with a $236,000 grant to use recycled glass in asphalt on the Albion Park Rail bypass project.
The project is an NSW Environmental Protection Authority, Waste Less Recycle More Initiative funded from the waste levy.
Albion Park Rail bypass is a marquee site for the use of crushed glass in New South Wales.
Crushed glass will make up 10 per cent of the base course by mass on the project. This means between two thirds and three quarters of the sand used in the structural asphalt layers on the project will have originated as recycled glass.
Waste exports of recycling waste have halted, leading to growing stockpiles of glass bottles.
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“People have been frantically trying to solve this problem, and one of the obvious solutions is to recycle glass back to what it was originally – sand,” Fulton Hogan GM Infrastructure Services, Eastern Region Ben Hayward said.
Fulton Hogan has undertaken laboratory testing of particle sizes and grading envelopes, and has optimised the asphalt’s mix properties for the recycled glass to ensure high performance results are achieved under various test methods.
An additional feeder and conveyor have been added to the Fulton Hogan Eastern Creek asphalt plant, enabling glass to be blended along with recycled asphalt (RAP).
“We didn’t want the addition of crushed glass to be at the expense of our use of RAP, and we are happily able to use maximum levels of both in the mix whilst maintaining the high performance levels required under our specifications,” Hayward said.