Lockhart Shire Council, New South Wales (NSW), is reducing stockpiles of glass waste and at the same time extending the life of its own quarries by using crushed glass in its road base material.
With the assistance of a grant from the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), Council has been trialling the new initiative using the region’s unwanted glassware.
In view of the trial’s success so far, Lockhart Shire Council has now begun negotiations to take sole delivery of all crushed glass from Wagga Wagga based recycling facility, Kurrajong Recycling.
Lockhart’s Director of Engineering and Environmental Services, David Webb, anticipates the project will utilise between 5 000 and 8 000 tonnes of the region’s glass waste every year.
According to Mr Webb, in addition to addressing the stockpiles of unwanted glass that were accumulating, particularly since the introduction of the Container Deposit Scheme in NSW, the initiative is estimated to extend the life of Council’s quarries by five to seven years due to the reduced amount of raw material required to be used in road projects.
The EPA funding has also enabled Council to purchase a Pugmill to blend the crushed glass into a roadworthy gravel-like constitution.
The process has been trialled on both sealed and unsealed roads around the Shire for the past 12 months.
Now being implemented fully, the program makes Lockhart the third council area in the state to adopt the waste reuse strategy.
