Paving the road to a sustainable future

Northern Beaches Council is trialling a novel waste recycling solution that transforms materials collected from beaches and streets into sustainable road surfacing material, dramatically reducing waste going to landfill and slashing dumping costs.

In a year to June 2020, Council’s recycling partner Downer has collected and processed 1,137 tonnes of street sweeping and beach waste material, and diverted over 95 per cent from landfill, to be reused for sustainable road construction and other activities.

Council has also saved nearly $83,000 on landfill disposal costs during the 12-month trial.

Materials from Council’s street sweeping and beach raking services are collected and transported to Downer’s Rosehill Detritus Facility, part of Downer’s ‘Reconomy’ business, and sorted to filter sand, aggregates, organic matter and metals.

Sand and gravel obtained from this process are used as part of the asphalt to be used on the road networks from where the material originated.

This process is claimed to be capable of recycling up to 95 per cent of the incoming material stream.

According to Downer, the waste material collected from the Council area has resulted in approximately five kilometres of road made with transformed asphalt.