Reduced fuel consumption and a personalised service were the major selling points for EcoGroup when it purchased its latest plant equipment – the Liebherr L 550 Wheel Loader.
Melbourne-based demolition and recycling specialists EcoGroup required an efficient wheel loader to manage their unique service – brick recycling and crushed bricks used for landscape toppings and sporting venues.
EcoGroup Founder Toby Sail says the company is proud to note it is Australia’s largest supplier of recycled bricks and red porous crushed brick. Otherwise known as red brick dust, the material is used in tennis court and baseball diamond surfacing.
Toby says he looked to Liebherr’s L550 Wheel Loader to aid his unique enterprise after bauma, the world’s largest construction industry trade fair.
Toby says he attended the conference in Germany in April of last year, purchasing the wheel loader in August and seeing immediate results.
He says Liebherr’s 18-tonne wheel loader provides increased performance, reliability and cost savings through reduced fuel consumption.
“We had another machine which was a very good loader, but Liebherr’s loader uses half the fuel than the leading brands and they are not as fuel efficient,” Toby explains.
He says increased fuel efficiency allows for more materials to be moved during each hour of operation, improving the company’s productivity.
The amount of traction the loader generates can be adjusted continuously, stopping wheel spins and reducing tyre wear significantly.
“The bricks come in a raw form from a demolition site which is bulk loaded into trucks then delivered to our site in Clayton for processing,” Toby says.
Once the bricks are separated from the other construction and demolition waste materials, the wheel loader is used to feed the bricks into a 10 m3 hopper.
After the bricks are sorted and graded as face or paver bricks, they are stacked on pallets and sold to the construction and landscaping industries. Bricks which are not suitable for reuse as a whole are crushed to create the red brick dust.
“Our point of difference is a brick separating plant, technology which we introduced from Denmark, in 2007. There are only two of these plants in the world,” he adds.
“We have about three or four competitors in Melbourne, so it’s important we get our equipment right.”
With more than 20 years’ experience in the demolition and construction recycling industry, Toby says Liebherr’s product has allowed him to cement his reputation in the market.
To read more, see page 48 of Issue 11.