Carbon Neutral Scheme headlines August highway works

Over three quarters of a million pounds was spent on various highway works throughout the county last month.

Parc y Dre in Ruthin was selected to receive over 4,500 square metres of resurfacing using an innovative surfacing material, lowering the overall carbon of the process significantly from that of traditional treatments.

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The Highways team had previously worked with the contractor, Miles Macadam, and were confident that they could deliver the scheme due to them being the only accredited carbon neutral surfacing contractor in the UK. Temperatures have been extremely high and despite this the team completed the works within 7 days. By using a process using lower mixing temperatures, lower energy resources and a lower bitumen content than conventional asphalt surfacing materials the goal was achieved. The grouting process associated with Milepave™ produced a flexible, fully sealed surface that coupled with the pre & post jointing treatment resists the thermal expansion & contraction of the concrete below. The result is a surface course which leads to better whole life cost and lower carbon use.

For this scheme it was calculated that the Environmental Saving resulted in :

• Savings of 54 tonnes in aggregates and 7.5 tonnes in straight run bitumen over conventional materials
•  13.2 tonnes CO2e saving over a conventional hot mix material and a non-carbon neutral surfacing contractor (the equivalent of 40,000 car miles)
•  Increased performance and subsequent lower whole life carbon costs

 

Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “We all know that highways maintenance is one of the most carbon-heavy activities we undertake as a Council.  We chose Parc Y Dre in Ruthin as we feel it is suitable for this project and we aim to make this the first net carbon zero resurfacing project in North Wales.”

“The Council was pleased to be working with Miles Macadam who will help us maintain our goal to become a Net Carbon Zero and Ecologically Positive Council by 2030 through innovative projects such as this”.

“Going forward as climate change becomes even more important, we will continue to work hard to ensure the Council is maintaining the reduction of its carbon footprint”.

Other schemes completed last month included Ty’n y Celyn in Llangollen, Crud y Castell in Denbigh, Glasfryn in Henllan, Beach Road East in Prestatyn and many more. In addition, we also resurfaced Ffordd Derwen in Rhyl and undertook a concentrated programme of surface dressing which was mainly focussed on the B5429 between Bodfari and Llanelidan.

The works forms part of the Council’s £4 million commitment to improving our road surfaces in the current financial year.

Street light project tackles carbon reduction

A project has been completed to reduce the carbon output of county street lights.

The Council has finished an energy reduction project to convert all its street lights to lower wattage LED’s.

The Council maintains a total of 11,690 street lights and following some small initial trial programmes, it was decided to replace the remaining units with low energy LED lights over a 7-year project in order to achieve savings in both carbon output and electricity costs.

 

The Council’s own in house street lighting team have delivered the project in its entirety from procurement and design to installation.

The project has reduced carbon output from street lights over the seven-year period from 1,800 tonnes annually during 2015/16 to 400 tonnes for 2021/22.

Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “We declared a Climate and Ecological Emergency in July 2019 and developed plans to become a net carbon zero and ecologically positive council by 2030.

“I am pleased to see the conclusion of this project which is supporting our priority in tackling carbon reduction across the county.

“This lighting equipment installed has utilised the most up to date technology and energy efficient equipment including part night dimming and constant lumen output. The completed project has achieved significant reductions in electricity consumption, carbon output and energy bills.”