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September 4, 2006
Alcoa congratulates Bidwill Community Garden Project
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Bidwill Community Garden Project is the proud winner of the prestigious Keep Australia Beautiful (NSW) 2006 Western Sydney Community Action Award, which is sponsored by Alcoa Australia Rolled Products (Alcoa ARP) at Yennora.
The Patron of Keep Australia Beautiful (NSW), Her Excellency, Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of NSW, and the Minister for the Environment, the Hon. Bob Debus MP, announced and presented the 2006 Sustainable Cities Awards at the Harbourview Hotel, North Sydney on Thursday 17 August.
Alcoa ARP’s Yennora Location Manager, John Costley presented the 2006 Western Sydney Community Action Award to Ms Marjorie Mead of the Bidwell Community Garden. The garden provides a place for residents to grow vegetables, plant flowers, learn gardening skills, make friends, pursue leisure activities and find out more about the environment.
Alcoa ARP also congratulates Runner Up Blacktown and District Environment Group Inc. for their ‘Booklet of Cumberland Plain Woodland Species for your Garden’, and artist Fida Haq of Carlingford who received a Highly Commended award for his work ‘Rhythm of Life’. Mr Haq uses recycled material including aluminium in his artworks.
Alcoa ARP’s Yennora Location Manager, John Costley said "Alcoa ARP has worked in partnership with Keep Australia Beautiful for over five years - we value the significant contribution KAB makes to creating a sustainable environment.”
“In line with our own commitment to ensuring a sustainable future, Alcoa ARP works closely with the local community, Holroyd City Council and the NSW Government to ensure that we operate in a manner that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable and responsible."
“Alcoa’s operations at Yennora have always complied with the strict NSW Environment Protection Agency conditions and we work hard to do better than minimum requirements,” Mr Costley said.
“Our Environment Improvement Plan, ISO 14001 Certification for our Environmental Management System, and Water and Energy Savings Action Plans further demonstrate our commitment to working with our community and local and state government to ensure that we share a sustainable future,” said Mr Costley.
Background
The Yennora plant is one of two aluminium rolling mills in Australia operated by Alcoa. The other is at Point Henry near Geelong, Victoria. They have a combined annual production capacity of more than 200,000 tonnes.
Alcoa ARP at Yennora is Australia's largest recycler of aluminium products, recycling about 70,000 tonnes per year, including 550 million cans. Around 90% of aluminium fabricated at Yennora is from recycled material.
Recycling aluminium plays a critical role in addressing the global greenhouse gas challenge – it takes five percent of the energy required to recycle aluminium as it does to produce it.
As a product, aluminium is also part of the solution for the greenhouse challenge. Alcoa researchers have forecasted that with global projections for the use of aluminium in cars and trucks and the numbers of vehicles in use, aluminium will increasingly become part of the global climate change solution with the industry reaching a climate neutral state by 2017. This means the global warming impacts of aluminium production will be fully offset by the amount of carbon dioxide emissions saved by the use of aluminium in the transportation industry. Today’s motor vehicles use aluminium in engine parts, panels, electronic systems and wheels. An average aluminium part is 40-50 per cent lighter than a steel part and every 10 per cent reduction in weight leads to a 6-8 percent improvement in fuel economy. Less fuel means less emissions and every kilogram of aluminium used in a car can reduce CO2 emissions by 20 kilograms over the life of the vehicle.
ENDS
Contact information-
Josephine Parrett: 02 9681 9554 or 0404 800 542
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