Trio of trees mark pledge

Road-builder Fulton Hogan insists a new $8 million Auckland asphalt plant will make neighbours happy by banishing fumes, and has dedicated a trio of trees to its environmental promise.

The three trees dug in beside the Mt Wellington plant at the opening were a kowhai, a gum tree in honour of an Australian design and commissioning team, and a North American sugar maple, which marks the Tennessee origins of the new hot-mix asphalt works, the first to be built in this country by the Chattanooga-based Astec corporation.

The maple is said to have anti-hangover properties when its burned ash is used to filter Tennessee whiskey. Fulton Hogan is confident the asphalt plant will similarly shield residential neighbours from any headache-inducing bitumen fumes by filtering and recycling them through a state-of-the-art and computer-operated "baghouse."

Its contracting chief executive, Lindsay Crossen, said the company had decided to build an entirely new plant to supply the materials needed for Auckland's road-building boom instead of upgrading older equipment to comply with tougher Auckland Regional Council air-quality standards.

It had an hourly production capacity of 250 tonnes of asphalt.

As well as recycling bitumen fumes which were previously released to the atmosphere through a more primitive filtering process, the plant can process waste asphalt milled from the region's roads during pavement maintenance.

It is also powered by waste oil, and supported by a modern testing laboratory on the site in Reliance Way, Mt Wellington.

Environment Minister Marian Hobbs, who opened the plant, said the ability to recycle used asphalt pavement was particularly important in Auckland, where good-quality aggregate was becoming scarce as quarries were worked out.

She congratulated Fulton Hogan for its contribution to road-building and engineering for more than 70 years.

Ms Hobbs said she was pleased the company was practising environmental sustainability "not just as a compliance issue but as part of your core business."