ecologiQ’s Post

Transcript

The Keon Parade Level Crossing Removal Project is the removal of one level crossing across Keon Parade. Which is a six lane highway, it���s a huge road with the replacement of a brand new station, at Keon Park. Project Beacon or The Recycled First Competition came about when LXRP wanted to partner with ecologiQ and said to us, you know, we want to know what, your biggest sustainability challenges are on the alliance. So we want to help you solve those challenges. We worked with the supply chain, around 15 suppliers came to us as part of the competition and told us the issues that they faced with bringing recycled products onto projects. So you can point in this precinct and say this is a recycled first precinct. And anywhere you stand, you can point and say that's recycled, that's made out of recycled products with the view that, everything done on Keon Parade is done in a smaller application, that we would solve those challenges on those small applications and on future projects across the network, we could expand and do them in a much wider ranging application as well. So that's the broad intent that we start small, solve those problems for the wider industry. We worked with a range of different products, and a range of different suppliers. We had around 7 to 8 suppliers in the end who made it in the ground into Keon Parade. Some of the more prominent ones were Robovoid who produce a recycled plastic void former that went into the Parkiteer slab here at Keon Parade. We worked with Reson8 and Future Agg who provide a recycled plastic aggregate product that made it into the precinct mixes. You can see it in some of the exposed environments, but it's also encapsulated in some of our concrete pavements where you can't see it, which is really exciting to use in a couple of different applications. We also worked with Omnigrip who provide a recycled glass that goes into surface treatment. You can see it on all of our roads around the precinct. We worked with CERES Fair Wood, who milled some of our landscape timber and turned it into some of that beautiful precinct furniture here, which is a really fantastic outcome. We worked with Curvecreate who created a mould for us for some precinct chairs. Who create basically a no cement concrete mix and they developed a mould. And hopefully that mold can be used for chairs and precincts, around the network. So ecologiQ were pivotal in our partnership, we partnered with ecologiQ, LXRP and the supply chain equally on this. They basically funnel all of the suppliers and work with our suppliers to connect them with contractors. Without ecologiQ we wouldn't have a really full understanding of some of those issues that suppliers face when trying to work on infrastructure projects. I think my key message is that it doesn't have to be hard. I, you know, all power to the project team. In the end, they were the ones that actually drove the delivery in a really constrained environment. But they they made it happen. So these things can be done. And, if you've done it once before, push to do it again in a bigger way and keep pushing the industry. We also partnered with Lee Group, who helping us develop and design our recycled plastic viaduct screen so that one is still in development and hopefully it can be rolled out pretty soon, but looking really, really promising. And in our landscaping we've got over 60 recycled plastic tray steaks that come from, cacti Group. So that's a really exciting outcome as well. you know, it doesn't matter that it's a it's a small use, you know, when you think about recycled plastic or recycled timbers or recycled crumb rubber at the moment, you can use them in a wide variety of things. Maybe you can't use them in a major structure, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't push for them to be involved in in low risk applications and really amplify the use of that as well. So So an example of that is, recycled plastic aggregate product. We've used that around 5000m�� across the product. we've got 1% of the aggregate mix using a recycled plastic aggregate. And on our next projects we're working with our suppliers to up that. And maybe we can go higher. Maybe we can go 10% of the recycled of the of the mix as a recycled plastic aggregate. Void. So I spoke about material reduction so that not just sort of saves the the project in the, you know, the government money, when you're using less material, you spend less of this economic benefits there. But the carbon benefit of removing concrete from an element is really significant. So we, think that we've removed about 24 to 25%, of the, of the slab in terms of carbon emissions. So that's really outstanding. And then the void form is himself so made out of recycled plastic and that comes from the Victorian waste stream. So when you're, you know, putting your milk bottles or your other, other plastics in the recycling bin, they're, they're picking that up and they're working with their own supply chain to remove waste diverted from landfill or to divert waste from landfill and use that in their product. So, it's kind of interesting for people to know that the waste product is now ending up in the ground in our projects, and we should be celebrating that. yeah. So I think, I think some unexpected benefits is that a lot of these products can be used in ways that you don't realize, and asking your supplies for that information as the innovators, as the people who want to work with you, you know, they they're going to work really hard to make sure that it works for us. So don't have set ideas about how something can work, because as soon as you open yourself up to that, you can achieve a whole lot of, benefits that you didn't realize. So maybe you're matching up to supplies in the supply chain that you didn't realize that has unexpected cost reductions in the future, or maybe even on your project. Maybe you're setting up partnerships for a future that you didn't know. So I would say be open to those sorts of things and, and listen to the people who are supplying the products because, they're the ones who want to work with us. So some other some not. The outcomes of Project baking, where that really the, the intent is that hopefully these products are purchased on, on a bigger scale and that those products become less expensive over time. So the more that they're used, the more normalized they'll be, the more they will become by you on our projects and should become cost comparable with other products in the market, like Virgin Rock and Virgin Concrete, that kind of thing. And also more acceptance of recycled plastics and recycled timbers and other recycled products in the landscape. So it can be challenging, for, for projects to adopt something new. It's really easy to do things the way that you've done them before. And I just sort of want to, you know, give, give credit to our supply chain, but also the project team here at Camp Ryde who went from, you know, this is too hard to to why not? Where can we use it? What are the opportunities we've got to do this, but let's turn it into something that we want to do. And we really, really, yeah, we really want to do, for the, for the wider industry. So ecologic helped us set up the initial workshops with the supply chain. They knew all the people, they knew all the suppliers. They were able to bring, those people to us and sort of set up the competition in a really meaningful way. So the suppliers were asked to submit some really detailed questionnaires as part of their submissions to the competition. So we needed to know that it was actually possible for us to solve those challenges in the scope of camp. Right. So we had to understand the technical challenges. We had to understand whether they were set up to meet our safety requirements. Was there any restrictions to them working in the right environment that we had to work on? What were the environmental benefits going to be? Did they have any perceived costs that we wouldn't understand initially, those sorts of things. So there was a really detailed multi-criteria analysis that was done to choose the successful suppliers. And we assessed them based on that. And the assessment team consisted of NTM as the rail operator, our construction team, our design team, and input from the Urban Design Advisory Panel as well be. Yes. So the the response to the competition was really overwhelming. We had 15 suppliers submit a response to the recycled first competition two Project Baking. And, they ranged in in volume and scope. So we had supplies coming to us about recycled plastics and how they could use them in concrete. We had suppliers who Weinstein recycled glass and with that could be used. And then, all the way to recycled timbers and how we could better use, make use of recycled timber in the landscape. And they came to us with varying challenges. You know, they wanted to talk about type approvals, so they wanted to talk about life cycle analysis. And they saw that opportunity to really target some of those key issues for them. And they had to justify that in a, in a really detailed kind of way. And it was really, really fantastic to see that the level of response that went into it, they could see and understand the benefit of what we were trying to do. And the responses reflected that in the amount of work that they put into them. So a real credit to the suppliers for coming to us, with their problems and with their challenges and their willingness to work with us as a program shot. We also partnered with Curve Creek, who developed a mold for us and able to make, they are able to make your polymer concrete chair. So that's a almost zero cement concrete mix. And hopefully that, that, you know, models can be rolled out across the network to use in a vast array of applications as well. So we selected Row by Void, knowing that they had a great intent of reducing concrete volume on the project. So it's a high sustainability outcome to remove materials. So that was really something interesting to us. We came to them and said we think we've got a good application, a small scale application at Key on Parade. We're looking to use, you know, a pocket slab which is about 20m�� of concrete. What can you do for us? It's a cost in situ application. And Robo Void normally do, precast applications. That's their bread and butter. So this was something new for them as well. So our design team and our construction team, we robo void, sat down and worked out how they would apply it in a costume situ environment. And there was a big design conversation about how we would appropriately move the Rio around in the slab where the void foam was would go, what size we would use, and robo would be integral in that conversation. They were there. The whole time, discussing the pros and cons and explaining the engineering opportunities and constraints with us, and we've got a really great outcome now. We used about 1200 cones in the slab, and we, removed about two meters cubed of concrete from that small slab alone. So the future application of that is really exciting So the future application of that is really exciting. So another really key outcome from our recycled first competition was getting people to come out and have a look and really see that this has been done in a really good test case. We talk about Canyon Pride as a small scale application. But really we've got, you know, tons of recycled product here. And we've shown that it can be done and should be done. Yeah. So one of the big challenges that, we had to face throughout sort of design and construction for the Recycle First competition was making sure that all of our stakeholders were satisfied and, and on board, we did involve them from the very beginning, but that doesn't mean that, little issues pop up, and you've really got to be prepared to answer some tough questions that you didn't realize were there at the start. One of the key things being about recycled plastic and how it might perform in an exposed environment, does it make you the requirements? Is it going to behave differently to to rock? Those sorts of things. And working with our suppliers was really critical for that. And, our, our, our rail train operators and our asset owners were really receptive to that. They had a lot of questions and was on us to answer them. And, you know, really being able to solve those sorts of challenges with them was a really collaborative approach. So that was very exciting. So a key lesson for us was, if you need to do testing on a product, do it early. You know, we we spent a long time working through the design and construction of these products, and, it was getting pretty line ball as to whether they would actually get accepted by our stakeholders before it went in the ground. And our project team worked really hard to make sure that we poured some test pause for some of our mixes and made sure that, everyone was happy with with how they looked and how they performed in the testing environment. So that's a very key thing. Go early and go hard and try different things with your products as well. So some of the original intents for these products didn't end up being where they landed. So I didn't necessarily expect that we would use recycled plastic in the, you know, nearly the whole precinct. But, once we worked at, the challenges and overcame them, you know, our suppliers and our installers were happy to install that. So that was really exciting Yeah, maybe. I think there's something I'd like to add is that I say this a lot about project making, about the recycled first competition. Is that, you really you need a a wide, wide variety of people willing to get on board and do this. Nothing gets done in isolation. So when I think about the the people involved in this process, it's in the hundreds, you know, and that's from starting at the end of 2022 to now. We're still working through the challenges and opportunities that it faces, and we are trying to work out how we document and report these sorts of things. So really the, the, the people involved is really, really significant. They're your biggest resource. And they have been absolutely, you know, critical in getting this project off the ground. So my name is Kate Rowan, and I'm the sustainability manager at the northwest Program Alliance.