Crushing Australia’s Construction & Demolition Waste Issues with Mobile Shredders

Annual waste volumes in Australia could increase by roughly 10 per cent every two-years, if the latest data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics remains consistent.

There are over 25 million people that call Australia home, and amongst us we generate nearly 76 million tonnes (Mt) of waste per annum – 2.95 tonnes per person – according to the same ABS figures.

And as our population grows, naturally, so too will the amount of material the local waste recovery and handling sector needs to effectively manage.

As such, the onus is on them to proactively stay on top of increasing load requirements by investing in waste sorting and minimisation equipment, like the ES 250 mobile shredder by McCloskey Environmental, as cornerstone waste contributors increase their outputs as a result of population growth.

Which Industries Contribute the Most Waste in Australia?

The 2022 National Waste Report released by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) cites the construction and demolition sector as the biggest waste contributor in Australia.

It generated 25.1 Mt of waste in the reporting period (Financial Year 2020-21) – the equivalent of 478 Titanics.

This is over 10 Mt more waste than Australia’s next biggest contributor, which was organics (14.4 Mt), while the other biggest waste verticals included ash (12.0 Mt) and hazardous waste (7.4 Mt).

In the next 12-months, national housing and infrastructure projects, as well as urban revitalisation works will generate further construction and demolition waste, placing added strain on the businesses and government organisations that deal with this offset.

What Are the Biggest Challenges Facing Demolition Waste Handlers?

The increasing size of bulky items arriving from demolition works is perhaps the greatest challenge affecting the frontline waste managers in Australia.

Scrap items containing ferrous (i.e. iron and steel), oversized timber beams and framing materials, large furniture pieces like couches and bedding, different plumbing fixtures, as well as flooring and carpets can all create headaches for the handling sector.

The inability to effectively process and minimise these volumes at waste stations often compounds these pressures, as it can lead to unexpected and expensive additional handling costs.

Furthermore, last year’s National Waste Report revealed that the recovery and recycling rate was among the highest for building materials at 81 per cent, underscoring the critical need for versatile machinery like heavy-duty tracked shredders and mobile shredder units to filter reusable waste items to help achieve the industry’s sustainability goals.

Introducing the ES 250 Mobile Shredder

Minimising, sorting and ultimately giving new life to different waste materials – whether they are demolition-related or not – has become a key lever to meet environmental and recycling targets nationally.

There are many ways to do this, but the most effective is by using specialised tracked shredder equipment, such as the ES 250 mobile shredder engineered by leading waste and recycling machinery pioneers McCloskey Environmental.

The versatile ES 250 unit is a tracked primary shredder capable of reliably shredding virtually any type of material, making it suitable for use across a wide variety of business industries including agriculture, minerals and resources, as well as being appropriate for scrap and hazardous material handling plants.

Available exclusively through Wastech Engineering in Australia and New Zealand, the ES 250’s aggressive eight-knife heavy-duty cutting table is powered by Volvo’s efficient C15 diesel engine which produces 540 horsepower – allowing it to breakdown, sort and organise different materials at a rate of between 35 – 100 tonnes per hour, depending on the type of waste being processed.

Some of the key features that set the ES 250 apart from other mobile shredders include its:

• Easy-to-use 12-inch DSE digital control system which manages critical information
• Ability to reduce its operational length by over five metres during transportation
• Overband dipole magnet option for removing ferrous material from the product stream, coupled with a ferrous discharge chute
• 8m C-C tracks for increased stability and manoeuvrability in tight spaces
• Large 1.2m wide processing belt which achieves a 3.48m discharge height
• Easy-access power unit for maintenance, Hagglunds closed loop hydraulics and smart auto-greasing system

To learn more about the powerful ES 250 mobile shredder check out this video.

As a proud partner of McCloskey Environmental, we offer the manufacturer’s full-line of innovative waste and recycling equipment to suit a variety of material handling business needs, including trommels, screeners and stackers – all of which have been rigorously developed and refined over nearly four decades.

If you would like to enquire about the ES 250 mobile shredder, other McCloskey shredder units, or a separate McCloskey Environmental waste management solution available through Wastech Engineering, please reach out to us at: info@wastech.com.au.