Beer bottles for footpaths
Daniel Burdon
02Jul09
BEER bottles and other glass containers will be used by Alice Springs Town Council to make footpaths.
The council is using an $850,000 grant from the Northern Territory Government to crush the glass and add it to concrete for the paths.The one-off grant came after Mayor Damien Ryan put the proposal to Treasurer Delia Lawrie's office to buy a glass crusher to battle the litter problem and make use of the recycled material. Mr Ryan said: ``Council picks up about 5880 stubbies each years and we have been putting them in the landfill then covering them up with sand and that takes up a huge amount of space.``So I thought why don't we take all that glass and recycle it into our footpaths and save money on sand as well.''Technical Services director Greg Buxton said the recycled glass would be the consistency of river sand, and could be used in any non-load bearing concrete such as kerbing and footpaths.Council expects the glass recycler to cut labour and recycling costs as well as have environmental benefits for Alice Springs.Mr Ryan said the funding was secured with help from Ms Lawrie and Environment Minister Alison Anderson.
