Sustainable Practices in Remediation
Remediation is the most sustainable part of this industry, and almost nobody says so.
Every structure we repair is a structure that does not get demolished and rebuilt. The concrete that would have been broken out stays where it is, the steel stays in the frame, and none of the embodied carbon already spent on that building has to be spent again.
Repair rather than replace
A concrete structure that has started to spall is not at the end of its life. It has a problem that can usually be identified, priced and fixed for a fraction of what replacement costs, in money and in material.
Cathodic protection, carbon fibre strengthening, crack injection, patch repair and recoating can add decades to an asset. On a bridge, a wharf, a car park or a heritage facade, that is the difference between a maintenance budget and a capital works programme. It is also the difference between a few truckloads of material and a demolition.
Heritage work is conservation, not construction
On a heritage building the original fabric is the thing of value, and the whole discipline is removing what has failed without damaging what has not. Gentle methods, careful trials, and a willingness to stop and reassess. Nothing about that is fast, and nothing about it is cheap, but a facade that survives another century is worth more than any material we could replace it with.
Containment on blasting and coatings
Abrasive blasting and coating removal are the parts of our work with the highest environmental risk, particularly on older structures where the existing coating contains lead.
The controls are containment, capture and disposal. Full enclosure where the risk warrants it, spent abrasive and removed coating captured rather than allowed to escape, water and sediment controlled, and the resulting waste classified and disposed of under licence. On a bridge or a wharf over water there is no second chance at this, so it gets designed before the job starts rather than managed on the day.
Where we want to get better
Materials are the next frontier. Lower carbon repair mortars, coatings with fewer volatile organic compounds, and systems that last longer so the cycle repeats less often. We work with the manufacturers rather than against them, and accreditation with the major system suppliers is part of how we keep access to the better products.
Method matters as much as material. A trial patch that tells you the right repair the first time saves more material than any product choice, and on an asset of any size it saves an enormous amount of unnecessary removal.
What we will not do is claim a number we have not measured. When we can report material saved across a year rather than estimate it per job, we will publish that, and not before.
Perfect Remediation 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.