We’ve all shifted a wheelbarrow or two of soil around the garden but what do you do with hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of spare sand?

The very clever and sustainable solution is to buddy up with another one of Perth’s major infrastructure projects to share resources…and that’s exactly what METRONET’s Yanchep Rail Extension Project has done.

Surplus earth being excavated as part of works for the new rail line is being shared with Main Roads and used on the Mitchell Freeway Extension Project.

90,000m3 has been moved since October 2021 with the plan to transfer more than 200,000m3 between the two projects.

Sharing resources in this way creates costs savings and sustainability benefits for both projects. The Yanchep Rail Extension doesn’t need to store excess material and the Mitchell Freeway Extension doesn’t need to purchase material from external sources.

Overall, this helps achieve project sustainability targets under ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’ (United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12); and the Infrastructure Sustainability Council’s ‘Resource Efficiency Category’.

Best practice engineering solutions and sustainable management practices such as this support METRONET’s Sustainability Strategy, which works towards a low waste circular economy by implementing practical ways to reduce our carbon footprint during construction and into operation.