Two Australian councils have launched recycled glass in road and path construction initiatives.

The most recent project took place in Bondi, Sydney, and was the first recycled glass road to be designed and approved by the NSW Road Traffic Authority. The second took place in Victoria’s Manningham Council, with the laying of a new shared pathway.

Both projects were funded by the Packaging Stewardship Forum (PSF) of the Australian Food and Grocery Council and have collectively diverted nearly 100 tonnes of recycled glass form landfill.

Two projects in Bondi will use 83 tonnes of recycled glass. Each site used a 100m section of an asphalt and concrete road and diverted glass which would have otherwise ended up in landfill.

The project follows the launch of a recent project in Victoria which has seen Manningham Council lay a new bicycle/pedestrian pathway using a 100 per cent recycled mix of crushed glass and crushed rock. The 240m pathway used 15 tonnes of crushed recycled glass in the sub-base.

More than 130,000 tonnes of beverage container glass is disposed of in landfills across Australia every year, with three times this amount stockpiled pending a suitable use being found.

"We use 9 million tonnes of asphalt in Australia each year for road construction, allowing glass into the mix of even 10 per cent of these roads will easily rid us of current stockpiles," says Jenny Pickles, general manager of the PSF.

The PSF has engaged the Australian Road Research Board and worked with Swinburne University in Victoria to develop specifications for the use of the recycled glass sand product in four alternative applications. These consist of partial replacement in asphalt paving, sand replacement in concrete, pipe embedment and aggregate mix in paving.

The specification will be complete and made available to local and state governments and road authorities in July this year.

Architecture & Design Team

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