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The subject site is a 26,000m2 area within the existing 15ha Chullora Recycling Park. The proposed multimillion dollar development was to add a 24h operational Recycled Glass Plant (RGP). The RGP would process up to 200,000 tonnes per annum of mixed glass to produce furnace ready cullet, thereby enabling a valuable resource to be recovered and reused.
Benbow Environmental undertook all aspects of the noise impact assessment including:
- Establishment of the noise criteria based on ambient noise level;
- Assessment of the noise impact of the RGP's operations (Night and Day) at the nearest residence using noise modelling and noise monitoring to calibrate the model;
- Assessment of traffic noise impact (truck and passenger car noise on site and on public road);
- Assessment of construction noise impact; and,
- Design of buildings and noise controls required achieving the noise criteria.
The project was specified to process a huge amount of glass, which created two main acoustical challenges.
The first challenge was to control the noise from trucks accessing and exiting the site, as well as unloading and loading raw glass.
The second challenge was to be able to insulate the glass processing itself from producing too much noise. It is easy to imagine that when glass falls and breaks, it produces high noise levels.
The noise controls proposed allowed the new facility on site to achieve the night time required noise levels < 43 dB(A) at the nearest residence, considering adverse weather conditions of the area.
(NB: 45 dB(A) is the internal noise criterion for restaurants)
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