A win for greener roads: Alex Fraser

Leading recycler, Alex Fraser, has won a Premier’s Sustainability Award for its Sustainable Supply Hub – Victoria’s largest integrated recycling facility.

Almost every Victorian has driven on a green road, built from materials recycled by Alex Fraser.

Each year, the company recycles three million tonnes of diverse, high volume waste into quality construction products needed for infrastructure development – providing the construction and civil works industry with sustainable alternatives to the earth’s depleting resources.

At the heart of this process is Alex Fraser’s Sustainable Supply Hub, which in December 2020 won the Large Business category at the annual Premier’s Sustainability Awards.

Now in its 18th year, the Premier’s Sustainability Awards recognises and celebrates Victorians who are leading the way to a sustainable future, across 10 categories.

In 2020, the awards received a record number of entries, with Sustainability Victoria CEO, Claire Ferres Miles, commending the quality of regional and metropolitan submissions.

Miles congratulated Alex Fraser on its achievement, and said the Premier’s Award demonstrates the innovative approach Victorian companies like Alex Fraser are taking to create a more sustainable future.

“The continued year-on-year growth of the awards reflects optimism and momentum to achieve Victoria’s commitment to transition to a circular and zero net emissions economy to reduce, re-use and recycle,” she said.

Officially opened in May 2019 by Victorian Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio, Alex Fraser’s Sustainable Supply Hub employs over 110 people.

The Hub exceeded all expectations in its first year of production, recycling and supplying Victoria’s road and rail projects with more than 200,000 tonnes of recycled glass sand, 390,000 tonnes of high recycled asphalt, and one million tonnes of recycled roadbase and aggregates.

“Our Sustainable Supply Hub is a prime example of how Victoria continues to lead the way in recycling and reusing valuable materials,” Peter Murphy, Alex Fraser Managing Director, says.

“The Hub utilises a range of cutting-edge technologies to recycle on an unprecedented scale, and helps Victoria build greener roads and rail.

“It’s great to see the innovation of our team and customers recognised through this award. I’m very proud of our people and the innovative work they’re doing to support Victoria’s circular economy.”

The hub integrates three state-of-the-art facilities – a construction and demolition waste recycling plant, glass recycling plant and a high technology asphalt plant.

“We take concrete, asphalt, brick, stone and glass waste, and process it into recycled high-quality materials for major infrastructure works, like roads, bridges and pavements,” Murphy explains.

“The construction materials we produce from waste that would otherwise go to landfill reduces the carbon footprint of major projects by up to 65 per cent.”

The Premier’s Sustainability Award is not the first for the Hub, with the facility awarded the Sustainable Environment Award at the Victorian Transport Association’s (VTA) 2019 Australian Freight Industry Awards.

In late November 2020, Alex Fraser took out the VTA’s Sustainable Environment Award once again, being recognised for the recent installation of an additive bin at its Clarinda Recycling facility.

Clarinda, much like the Laverton Hub, supplies major road, rail and municipal projects with a range of high-spec, sustainable materials.

The facility has the capacity to recycle one million tonnes of recyclables each year – roughly 25 per cent of Melbourne’s glass and construction waste – and in early December 2020, was granted a 10-year operational extension following a lengthy challenge from Kingston City Council.

Following the extension, Alex Fraser teamed up with Greenfleet, a leading environmental not for profit and Australia’s first carbon offset provider, to take practical climate action.

For every tonne of carbon created at the Clarinda Recycling Facility, Alex Fraser has committed to funding Greenfleet to plant enough native trees to directly offset its carbon emissions and help restore Victoria’s native forests and ecosystems.

The initiative will see Alex Fraser offset 100 per cent of the 2500 tonnes of carbon emission generated at Clarinda.

“Our recycling facilities are determined to achieve the best possible outcomes for their communities and the environment,” Murphy says.

The Premier’s Sustainability and VTA awards highlight the critical role Alex Fraser’s network of facilities play in Victoria’s resource recovery and infrastructure ecosystem, with the company’s four sites annually supplying more than three million tonnes of sustainable construction material to the state’s big build.

In the two years since its launch, for instance, Alex Fraser’s Green Roads PolyPave Asphalt product has been successfully implemented across nine municipal councils across Victoria.

The company’s recycled asphalt has also been utilised on a number of Victoria’s level crossing removal projects, as well as the state’s Mordialloc Freeway, Monash Freeway and Western Roads upgrades – a group of projects worth over $2 billion.

“I’m really proud of what we do. We’re preserving natural resources. We’re keeping things out of landfill,” Murphy says.

“Our customers are very focused on building projects on time, on-spec and on-budget. And we help them do that and get a better outcome for the environment.”