International Day of Zero Waste

Today, the 30th of March 2024, is International Day of Zero Waste, and across all COLAS Group companies in the Oceania region, we’d like to highlight some of the various ways we approach minimising our waste!

30by30 is our Groupwide Sustainability Program, aimed at reducing our collective carbon emissions by 30% between 2019 and 2030.
Developed through scientific direction from both the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Agenda and the World Resources Institute’s Sustainable Development Goals, this program follows the global COLAS sustainability direction, with a targeted focus on both energy and material usage.

In asphalt, there are many ways we can reduce the energy, materials, and production requirements to deliver the same high-quality pavements.
One way is by using RAP (Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement), which rejuvenates and reuses previously laid pavement surfaces.
Next, we use crumb rubber, repurposing the materials that would otherwise be destined for a wasteyard from end-of-life tyres.
Then there’s ECO5, our most sustainable asphalt mix to date. ECO5 uses both RAP, crumb rubber, as well as crushed glass, fly ash, and slag, all repurposed byproducts and waste materials from other industries.
Another way is by paving Warm-Mix Asphalt (WMA). With WMA, we not only save on energy expenditure but also improve on safety.

In production, the burner fuel of our asphalt plant in Auckland, New Zealand is completely powered by using recycled lubricant oil, leftover from the use of trucks and other heavy equipment – a huge saving on energy!

In our fleet, we have a number of both hybrid and electric vehicles in operation within the Group, with COLAS in Australia commissioning our first fully electric vehicle just late last year.

Moreover, our production plant in Tomago, NSW has recently had multiple solar panels installed, which provide energy to the many electric vehicles in operation for our workshop and maintenance fleet.