As Alex Fraser celebrates its 145th anniversary, Roads and Infrastructure reflects on the company’s journey to becoming one of Australia’s leading providers of recycled construction materials.
Alex Fraser is one of a few Australian companies to have 145 years of operation behind them. An extraordinary milestone and long history of success, which Alex Fraser attributes to its investment in its people and its business.
With a diverse team of people and a network of recycling facilities and asphalt plants across Brisbane and Melbourne, Alex Fraser has recovered and recycled more than 58 million tonnes of concrete, brick, rock, asphalt, and glass. All used to produce specification products needed to build greener roads and infrastructure.
Established in 1879, Alex Fraser was a founding member of a metal broker firm in Queen Street, Melbourne, run by the Melbourne Metal Exchange (MME).
In 2018, Alex Fraser was acquired by Hanson Australia, one of Australia’s largest and most innovative providers of construction materials.
Alex Fraser’s recycling and asphalt operations work with local governments, contractors and asset owners to build greener roads throughout Melbourne and Brisbane, reducing the carbon footprint of construction by up to 65 per cent.
By choosing Alex Fraser’s Green Roads Construction Materials, developers and government have helped to save carbon emissions and reduce heavy vehicle traffic.
Growth
In 2019, Alex Fraser invested in Victoria’s first licensed glass recycling plant at its Western Sustainable Supply Hub, with capacity to process more than 150,000 tonnes of glass per year, equating to around four million bottles daily. The plant has now recycled the equivalent of 5.7 billion glass bottles.
At the same time, Alex Fraser commissioned its High Recycled Technology asphalt plant, which blends large quantities of recycled glass, asphalt, and plastics into sustainable Green Roads asphalt mixes.
It also launched its first Sustainable Supply Hub in Melbourne’s west, integrating the asphalt plant, glass plant and a construction and demolition (C&D) plant to recycle high volume waste into quality construction materials.
One year later in 2020, Alex Fraser’s Clarinda Recycling Facility installed an additive bin – partly funded by Sustainability Victoria’s Resource Recovery Infrastructure Fund grant – used to blend recycled glass sand and brick into a new, sustainable roadbase product.
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Melbourne’s northern suburbs were the next destination for a new facility, when Alex Fraser commissioned its new asphalt plant in Epping in 2023 at its Northern Sustainable Supply Hub, establishing a network of asphalt plants around greater Melbourne.
The latest innovation at Alex Fraser’s Northern Sustainable Supply Hub, its brand new rock crushing plant, was commissioned in June this year, with further additions due for completion in 2025. The plant is expected to process up to one million tonnes of recycled products, including paddock rock and reclaimed asphalt pavement.
The end product also feeds Alex Fraser’s neighbouring Epping Asphalt Plant to produce high-recycled sustainable asphalt, containing up to 70 per cent recycled materials.
Alex Fraser Managing Director Peter Murphy says the hub will maximise sustainability outcomes for Melbourne’s north, boosting the current recyclable market.
waste glass fines that cannot be recycled back into glass bottles or jars.
“Our facilities are customers’ one-stop shops to recycle construction material including paddock rock, brick, concrete and asphalt profilings, and to source high-recycled construction materials and lower-carbon asphalt,” he says.
Murphy says Alex Fraser’s innovations are instrumental in fostering a safe environment while maximising operational efficiency in the plant.
“Process improvement is constant and soon we’ll see the introduction of more technology supporting material detection and sorting accuracy, which will also reduce manual handling,” he says.
Green Roads
Quintessential to Alex Fraser’s identity is its tagline ‘Building Greener Roads’, which has become synonymous with improving sustainability outcomes on large infrastructure projects. Through the implementation of the Victorian Government’s Recycled First Policy, Alex Fraser was well-positioned to supply quality, recycled construction materials and support Victoria’s Big Build, with recycled content proactively considered in bid and tender requests.
In 2023, Alex Fraser supplied more than 465,000 tonnes of its Green Roads Construction Materials, contributing to an expansive list of works across the Level Crossing Removal Project and the Big Build, including the Sunbury and Epping road redevelopments.
Innovation
Specifications that clearly support the use of recycled materials have proven to be critical to standardising the industry’s uptake of circular construction products. With innovation at the forefront of operations for Alex Fraser, trials like ‘Recycled Tyres for Sustainable Roads’ demonstrate how the use of recovered carbon black (rCB) in asphalt can be built to build greener roads for Victoria.
Alex Fraser’s Green Roads Recycled Glass Sand is another example of innovation and has been extensively used in compliance with VicRoads.
Murphy says that collaboration supports Alex Fraser’s commitment to sustainability.
“Collaborations, such as partnerships with infrastructure agencies, ecologiQ and our long-standing customers have been the key to increasing the use of recycled materials in infrastructure projects, contributing to a more sustainable and thriving circular economy,” he says.
Alex Fraser’s fierce advocacy and knack for pushing the envelope is a sure sign of the company’s continued success in being a leader, and pioneer in the recycling space.
This article was originally published in the November edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.