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Lafarge Aggregates SE Receives EPA Award for Environmental Excellence

Release Date: 08/14/2008
Contact Information: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov

(Atlanta, GA – August 14, 2008) Today, EPA Regional Administrator Jimmy Palmer recognized Lafarge Aggregates SE, Douglasville Quarry in Douglasville, Georgia as a recipient of the 2008 Performance Track Environmental Performance Award. Lafarge is one of two companies in the southeast to receive this award.

“We are proud of Lafarge’s work to improve the environment by reducing its environmental footprint," said Jimmy Palmer, EPA Regional Administrator. “As a Performance Track leader, Lafarge is helping change the way businesses view their responsibility to protect our shared environment.”

"It is an honor to be recognized among the ranks of the other companies that have received this award,” said Matthew Stewart of Lafarge, North America. “What impresses me most about the EPA’s Performance Track program and the resulting award is that the program required demonstrated performance through tangible metrics; in our case a 96 percent reduction in sediment leaving the site. This demonstrates Lafarge’s strong commitment to sustainable development in which environmental protection, natural resource conservation and investment in our local communities are key components.”

Lafarge's Douglasville Quarry manufactures and sells heavy building materials, including quarry extraction of aggregates (broken stone and similar materials used as components in concrete). From 2003-2006, Lafarge's Douglasville Quarry achieved the following environmental improvements:

• In 2003, the quarry set a goal to increase its land and habitat conservation by 0.22 acre. By the third year of its membership period, Lafarge had conserved nearly three acres and received certification for that acreage through the Wildlife Habitat Council's "Wildlife at Work" program.
• Lafarge set a goal to reduce its discharge of total suspended solids by increasing the capacity of its retention pond to minimize the discharge of waste water, and to recycle the water back to the plant for use in dust control. The result was a 96 percent reduction (or more than 9,700 pounds) in total suspended solids.