Boral has revealed a multi-million-dollar investment in its noise control at Wollert Quarry to be proactive in meeting current noise regulations.
Boral completed the improvements in a staged progresssion with a collaboration between the Wollert team and Boral’s capital projects team over nine months and invested more than $2 million for the project.
Boral conducted a review into the noise controls at the quarry which looked at plant and equipment which could emit “unreasonable noise” via volume, intensity, duration and character.
The review followed the introduction of new environment protection regulations in 2021. The new regulations were built around the concept of General Environment Duty (GED) which requires businesses to identify and manage environmental risks.
By being proactive in meeting the regulator’s protocols and limits is expected to be key to obtaining an approval to expand the Wollert site in the future. According to Boral, an expansion of the site has the potential to unlock an additional six million tonnes of materials.
Boral engaged a supplier to carry out compliance monitoring and modelling to identify plant and equipment that needed to be addressed. The review identified several factors which could be improved to achieve compliance:
- Restriction of operations in the morning between 6am and 7am.
- An enclosure for primary plant, with suitable opening for material feed.
- Screening to all sides of screen one and the secondary processing plant.
- An acoustic wall to the western edge of the concrete batching plant.
- Screening to the open areas at the bottom of the screening shed.
- The removal of the mobile crushing circuit.
Boral Wollert quarry manager Andrew Rankin said the project had been a success.
“Thanks to everyone involved – from the local Wollert team, to support from our Property, Environment and Capital Projects team who have all played a role in successfully reducing our environmental noise footprint here at Wollert and maintaining our social licence to operate,” he said.
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