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[May 2007]
Impressive Water Conservation at Boral Roof Tile Plant
Boral has announced that it has delivered more than a 65% reduction in mains water usage at its Carole Park roof tile plant in Queensland, Australia over the past 12 months.
“Through water saving staff awareness and brainstorming sessions, together with a strong commitment from management, the Boral team achieved an impressive 65-70% reduction in mains water usage at Carole Park,” said Russell Greene, Queensland Plant Manager, Boral Roofing. “It was a mixture of technology and common sense operational issues that were identified by a dedicated in-house team which led to us reducing mains water consumption at Carole Park by around two million litres per annum.”
Boral is Australia's largest supplier of building and construction materials and in 2006 it reduced its mains water consumption across its businesses by 21%, when compared with its 2005 operations. Water conservation is one of Boral's five key sustainability priority areas. Substantial effort is going into investigating and implementing water re-use and recycling across its Queensland operations and in other States.
Boral's Construction Materials business in Queensland is focused on more effectively utilising water assets across its 50 operations in South East Queensland by developing a 'Boral Water Grid'. The Boral Water Grid is a business tool to enable the systematic identification, assessment, prioritisation and implementation of water reduction initiatives, re-use opportunities, substitution of mains water with alternative on- and off-site water supplies and water distribution improvements to enable sharing of water between various Boral sites. In addition to this holistic water strategy, Boral is completing Water Efficiency Management Plans (WEMPs) for all of its Asphalt, Concrete, Quarry and Transport sites in South East Queensland, which were triggered by Level 4/5 water restrictions.
Whilst it is early days in terms of the gains to be delivered by Boral's Construction Materials operations in Queensland, some sites have already reported significant water reductions. Boral's West Burleigh Quarry, for example, has reduced its potable water usage by approximately 80% in comparison to its water usage rate in financial year 2004/05, despite similar production levels. Boral's plasterboard manufacturing plant at Northgate is its largest mains water consuming plant in Queensland using more than 90 million litres of water per annum. Boral has continued to develop best practice procedures at Northgate around water conservation including recycling 100% of its process waste water (i.e. nothing going to sewer). Boral's Northgate plant received a four star rating on its 'One2Five ' water audit programme carried out by Brisbane Water which placed it in the top 10% of more than 275 businesses audited.
www.boral.com.au
ENDS