Story: Ian Bushnell waste embraced In an industry with limited resources, Ernest Dupere is fostering better results for builders, clients and the environment. Ernest Dupere doesn’t have a problem with construction and demolition waste was generated waste. He can’t get enough of it. Better it in 2014-15 and 64 per cent was recovered. go to him and the company he co-directs Of this about 17.2 mega tonnes was masonry with his business partner Dana Dupere, waste including concrete, bricks and rubble, with than end up in landfill or worse, dumped illegally. 70 per cent recycled. From 2006-07 to 2014-15 Benedict Industries is the second biggest masonry waste generation increased from about recycler in the Sydney area but its point of 15 to 17 Mt but the quantity that went to landfill difference is what it does with the waste it collects.dropped from about 5.6 to 5.2 Mt while recycling Established in 1966 as a family-owned haulage grew strongly from 8.9 to 12 Mt. company, Benedict soon expanded into quarrying, Mr Dupere says builders have always building and landscape supplies, recycling and now appreciated the cost-savings that proper waste property development. The company has been management and recycling can provide, as well as at the forefront of the emerging circular economy, meeting the increasing demands from customers creating products from waste that have become for greener houses. industry standards and has been a supplier to ‘If you can suddenly save $100 a month on some major projects in Sydney. your power bill that [is something that] affects ‘Our company in many ways has led the way people’s decisions, so the bottom line encourages for the provision of recycled and quarry landscape them to build more efficient structures. The costs products to the construction industry in Sydney,’ of delivering those are [improved if you’re] more says Mr Dupere, who has been with the company efficient with the waste generated in construction since 1986. and clearing the site,’ he says. In a world of shrinking resources, cost This has driven demand for Benedict’s ever- imperatives and shifts in public expectations about increasing range of recycled landscape and the environment, the building industry has seen a building supply products that are competitive steady growth in the recycling of waste and the with quarried ones, including soils, mulches, take-up of recycled products. aggregates, gravel and roadbase. The trend is clear. According to the Australian And with the cost of landfill so high in Sydney, National Waste Report 2016 prepared for the not to mention the environmental consequences of Department of Environment and Energy and simply dumping waste, there are savings all round released last year, about 20 mega tonnes of if that waste can be diverted to recycling. 14 HOUSING MAY 2018 PEOPLE • MEMBER PROFILE