60 YEARS AND GOING

The life cycle perspective for the building process with concrete allows our company to identify any environmental impacts during the stages of production. Cordwells potentially prevent adverse environmental impact by using environmentally friendly products to form mixes where available (at the life cycle stage we have control over). Cordwells can substitute cement for fly ash in mixes in-line with Australian Standards, which is a recycled waste. A reduced amount of energy is required in the fly ash manufacture process.

One of the most effective ways we have saved rainwater is by installing our rainwater harvesting system. 10 000 gallon water storage tanks have been installed underground at each of the buildings at Cordwells. From here water is channelled through and moved to a larger storage facility on a high point of the business site. This tank was constructed using leftover concrete to make blocks and by placing them in position and spraying the inside to make it strong and waterproof we created a water storage system for use in the concrete plant. All hard stand areas where wash down water is used have a silt collection point with a pump on a flat reclaiming the water and returning it to a large tank located by the concrete plant for reuse. This pump system has a large pumping capacity to catch up to an inch of water every hour of rain fall, also places that water in our tank and makes sure it is clean if the water does leave the site. Cordwells aim to use recycled water first.

Our new Caloundra plant is capable of producing more than 20m3 of concrete, before needing to refill the bins with materials. It will capture every drop of water, with 800,000 litres of storage. We use the drum blaster to clean the agitator internals.

Cordwells can influence the aspect of waste returned from site by reclaiming the materials and water to be recycled. On the 16 July 2012 we had our grand opening of the first Scrommel (concrete reclaimer) to be installed in Australia at our Yandina concrete plant. This reflects Cordwells continuous industry improvement and reduction on environmental carbon footprint. Our Yandina Plant has a 100% recycled water system, large underground tanks for storage and a dust extraction system.

In 2022 cordwells helped with the rehabilitation of over 6000 locally sourced native trees. Check out the about page for more efforts we have made

The first stage of Koala Habitat Rehabilitation Program was completed at Cordwells Kin Kin Quarry site with a total of 11,900 trees and shrubs planted to create a new significant area of Core Koala Habitat for the site in OCTOBER 2022. The planting of 11,900 koala food trees improves availability of Koala Food Trees, shelter resources, habitat connectivity onsite and across the broader Kin Kin landscape, and Eucalyptus species diversity onsite. The rehabilitation planting also decreases edge effects of ecological disturbances such as weed incursion for a significant area of Core Koala Habitat. Increasing food and habitat resources and habitat linkages supports koalas to move across the landscape from more fragmented areas to the north of the project area to more high quality Core Koala Habitat to the South/South East of the project area. Other koala rehabilitation programs onsite include: long term management of restrictive invasive weeds and Environmental Weeds in Eucalyptus bushland areas (Assisted Regeneration) and additional direct planted areas. This program is the beginning of an excellent conservation outcome for the Quarry site long term through the creation of a larger area of high quality koala habitat to support the endangered species (EPBC and NC Act) and other native fauna such as Gliders, Possums, Birds and Reptiles and Bats on the project site itself and larger landscape