Geomembrane protection

The Cherbourg project is a Queensland State Government initiative to provide lower cost sewerage treatment infrastructure to Australian regional country communities. The sewerage treatment process involves primary and secondary treatment of effluent from the community, and flows through seven treatment ponds, to improve waste water quality, until clear to discharge into a natural watercourse.

The original design was for all effluent ponds to be fully lined with 2.0 mm smooth HDPE liner and the HDPE lined pond wall slopes to be covered with a 80 mm thick grout concrete blanket. Our partner, Curtis Barrier International, submitted Tiltex 10 as an alternative protection cover to the HDPE lined pond slopes.

The area to be covered was over 30 000 m2. TILTEX concrete liner serves as a protection to the HDPE liner from feral animals, stock, vandalism and also enables people and animals to exit the ponds.

Additional TILTEX advantages over other products were:

- Tiltex 10 placed over the HDPE liner would protect the HDPE liner from UV degradation, ozone, wind lift and minimize elevated temperatures to the HDPE liner's thermal expansion issues, thus Tiltex will increase the HDPE liner's operational life.

- Protection overlay minimized damage from feral animals (kangaroos, pigs, wild horses, goats) and stock (cattle, sheep).

- Tiltex 1o protection overlay was faster to install at 2,6OO m2 per day, compared to grout blankets.

- Protection overlay had sufficient textured surface for people to climb out of the pond,