Colin Elkins chats to Dennis Grech, CEO & Managing Director of Geofabrics, Australasia’s largest supplier of geosynthetic products for infrastructure, about their sustainable manufacturing initiatives launched in 2020.
“Towards the end of last year, we started looking at the sustainability market within Australia and how it would apply to geosynthetics. Geofabrics have been manufacturing in Australia since the mid-1980s, but we started looking at using recycled plastics as a raw material into our number one product which is bidim geotextile.”
bidim has historically been manufactured with polymer sourced from offshore markets. bidim Green is a product enhancement that will replace between 500 – 1,000 tonnes of offshore sourced polymer with Australian sourced recycled plastics.
“A key part of our business is a very strong angle towards R&D and innovation and product development. bidim Green’s performance characteristics are the same as bidim, but it includes an element of recycled Australian material and our customers have taken to that innovation extremely well.”
In addition, Megaflo Green launched just this month, is the only Australian-made panel drain made from 100 percent recycled HDPE, the plastic most commonly used in milk bottles.
Creating a recycled product might be slightly more expensive to manufacture, but the benefits of giving their customers choice, reducing waste to landfill and taking plastics out of waterways and oceans is a responsibility they’re proud to undertake.
To that end, Geofabrics was recognized as the Australian Exporter of the Year – Environmental Solutions in 2019.
“Geofabrics have a very strong social responsibility to find solutions. We will continue, as a very important part of our strategy, pursuing further opportunities to convert our products into sustainable products and to provide our customers the opportunity to access a real green solution.”
About Geofabrics
Geofabrics Australasia, a company registered in Australia with trading and manufacturing operations through-out Australia, provides geosynthetic products for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure projects in Australia and throughout the world. Geofabrics commenced operations in Australia in 1978 and commenced manufacturing in Albury, NSW in 1986.
Geofabrics have been an IFS customer since 2005.
Read more blogs from Colin Elkins.
Do you have questions or comments?
We’d love to hear them so please leave us a message below.
