Environmental Impact and Waste Reduction
Construction and demolition produce one of the largest waste streams in Australia. Perfect Group works at both ends of it, taking structures apart and keeping structures alive, so our approach has to cover both.
Assessment comes before anything else
Nearly every environmental failure traces back to something nobody investigated early enough
Across every division, work starts with finding out what is actually there. Hazardous material surveys, waste classification of soil to be disturbed, coating testing on older structures, services searches, and an assessment of what can be recovered or retained.
That pre-work decides the cost, the programme and the risk on a project. A structure holding friable asbestos, a slab on contaminated fill, or a bridge coated in lead based paint changes the whole job, and it is far better found in a report than in week three.
Hazardous material stays in house
Asbestos including friable, contaminated soil, lead affected material, hydrocarbons and underground storage tanks are handled under our own licences rather than subcontracted. One chain of custody, one set of documentation, and no gap between two parties each assuming the other holds the paperwork.
Classification is where the real risk sits
Every load leaving a site has to be classified correctly, carried by a licensed transporter and received by a licensed facility. General solid, restricted solid, hazardous and asbestos waste each carry their own rules and costs.
Pushing a marginal load into a cheaper classification is a liability that outlives the project, because the regulator holds the generator of the waste responsible, and that is the client. No division of this group does it, whatever the programme pressure.
Controls on site
Dust suppression and on tool extraction, silica controls wherever concrete is cut or broken, containment on blasting and coating removal, noise and vibration monitored where a consent requires it, drains protected and sediment controlled before work starts, and no discharge to stormwater. On work over water, catchment and washdown collection are designed into the method rather than added as a checklist item.
Reporting, and the people around the job
Waste dockets, receiving facility receipts, monitoring results, incident records and validation reporting are produced as the work runs and formatted to fit the client's project management plan where one exists.
Beyond the paperwork are the people who live and work around our sites and had no say in it. Truck routes away from schools and residential streets where possible, work inside approved hours, streets swept, hoardings maintained, and somebody who will answer the phone. A complaint that reaches council costs weeks, so this is practical as well as decent.
Perfect Group acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Traditional Custodians of the country on which we live and work. We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians and Elders past, present and future, and honour their connection to the land and ongoing contribution to society.