Award-winning EcoBlanket delivers resources advantage
World-leading groundcover process, EcoBlanket, is creating major cost, time and environmental advantages for resources clients with its award-winning lifecycle design and rapid application process.
Exclusively managed in Australia by Queensland-based Groundworks Australia, EcoBlanket is delivering unmatched revegetation and rehabilitation results.
Strong success has prompted expansion into Western Australia through EcoBlanket’s first Australasian franchisee, WA Eco Plant.
Groundworks Managing Director Tony Rees, winner of the 2014 Queensland Minister’s Award for Leadership in Sustainability, said CSG and other resources projects were seeing significant gains from using EcoBlanket.
“Our team has stabilised steep site and dam batters, reversed highly dispersive, unstable soils and erosive drains, and protected environmentally sensitive river catchments,” Tony said.
“Even under extreme conditions common to remote projects, EcoBlanket creates an immediate moisture retention cell that can withstand climate fluctuations – and it holds fast even after significant rain events,” he said.
“It outperforms when it comes to immediate results and rapid growth rates…and the value from an operations and maintenance perspective is outstanding.
“Now with our WA franchisee, we’re ready to support the mega west coast resources sector while continuing our already proven track record on the east coast.”
For resources clients, EcoBlanket has delivered instant erosion control and sheet flow protection, quickly established cover crop and ensured sustainable revegetation, achieving results for some clients where other methods have failed.
Liquid and green waste, often sourced from CSG and mine sites by Groundworks partner NuGrow, is converted into nutrient-rich organics that well exceed Australian Standards and form the basis of the proprietary process.
Individual site testing and tailoring of the organics are EcoBlanket’s major points of difference and critical to the superior success rate.
Combined with tailored native seed blends, EcoBlanket is applied using a non-invasive, pneumatic (blown on) process that effectively ‘plants’ the seeds into the instant, high-quality organics.
Individual sites can feature several different seed mixes and state-of-the-art machinery treats thousands of square metres daily – meaning it is fast, economical and flexible to staged construction.
Made from 100% organic materials, it achieves 100% soil coverage and more than 99% sediment and erosion control. It guarantees a more than 90% germination rate within a few days when instructions are followed and sequesters 25 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per hectare on average over time.
EcoBlanket delivers the market’s least expensive whole-of-life solution for advanced erosion control and revegetation, with past projects including major infrastructure projects, resources and mine sites, and development projects.
Groundworks has won industry accolades for EcoBlanket including the 2013 WRIQ Innovation Award, with NuGrow, and 2013 IECA Australasia Environmental Excellence Award in Innovation, and was a finalist in the prestigious 2014 UNAA World Environment Day Awards.