The City of Mitcham was awarded the Excellence in Sustainable and Environmentally Responsible Infrastructure Management at the Local Government Professionals Australia, SA 19th Annual Leadership Excellence Awards held in early July 2020.
The award was presented to the City of Mitcham’s Engineering and Natural Environments Team for the St Marys permeable asphalt carpark.
Australia generates 56 million waste tyres every year. At the same time, the level of pollutants in stormwater runoff from rainfall on our roads increases annually, creating serious problems for our environment.
The City of Mitcham has built on their smart water design successes to construct a carpark that solves both issues, through a permeable asphalt surface made of 50% waste tyres, which has the ability to infiltrate the stormwater to the underlying soils to passively irrigate the trees surrounding the carpark, effectively preventing any pollutants discharging to the stormwater system.
Over four tonnes of waste tyre rubber has been used in the permeable carpark surfacing, allowing the water to percolate down to the tree roots where the pollutants are taken up by the trees as fertiliser, creating bigger trees with healthier canopies that provide year-round shade to the carpark.
During construction of the carpark, a geothermal pipe was installed under the carpark base, and if successful, could provide up to 5kW of power to the adjacent sports clubrooms.
The site now serves as a national working example of the new standard that Councils can achieve when upgrading their infrastructure.
There is more information about this award winning project here.
Water-testing the permeable pavement carpark. Source: City of Mitcham