The Australian rural environment means there are many kilometres of unsealed roads for local officials to maintain – often with inadequate funding. The major portion of local governments’ budgets for unsealed roads is spent on grading and re-sheeting gravel that, unfortunately, immediately begins to deteriorate. Dusty fines blow off the road, causing the larger aggregates to become unbound and drift into verges and drains.
Losing gravel in this way is becoming more costly, as supplies of gravel are diminishing, haulage distances are increasing and prices are rising. Fortunately, there is a proven method of reducing the amount of dangerous dust on unsealed roads and reducing community complaints in the process.
Rainstorm Dust Control’s DustMag product is a surface treatment for unsealed roads that lasts between 10 to 12 weeks dust free during the dry months. DustMag absorbs moisture from the atmosphere to maintain optimum moisture for dust control. Studies of gravel loss conducted by Main Roads WA showed that using DustMag provided a 71 percent saving in gravel loss compared to untreated sections over an eight-month monitoring period.
Rainstorm’s DustMag was been ranked number one for Dust Generation, Surface Finish and Pavement Condition out of six products trialled for dust control on one of Australia’s most notoriously dusty roads. DustMag was rated number one for all three criteria over all three measurement intervals.
Road maintenance officials keep coming back to DustMag because grading cycles are dramatically scaled back and the interval between re-sheeting the gravel is extended by many years. Even roads that have received few if any dust complaints are now candidates for treatment because of the savings that are realised.
Contact the Rainstorm representative in your state so you can personally assess the benefits for your own roads under your own conditions.
*Copy supplied by Rainstorm
