Over the span of a few days late last week, Canberra Concrete Recyclers co-owner Ian Oliverโs phone was blowing up with offers on a Clem Cummings bus shelter that heโd personally saved from the scrap heap.
The shelter had been dropped off to Canberra Concrete Recyclers for demolition by an ACT Government contractor, having been removed from its previous home on Ginninderra Drive, Dunlop, following a traffic collision.
โWhen this bus shelter came about, I thought there is no way on my conscience I could see this crushed,โ Mr Oliver told Canberra Daily.
After a few months, he made a call to the man who put Canberraโs bus shelters back on the map, Newcastle-based artist, Trevor Dickinson.
Mr Dickinson briefly posted an ad for the shelter across social media with Mr Oliverโs phone number, which saw him fielding offers โleft, right and centreโ.
After contemplating the logistics of handing the nine-tonne shelter to a buyer, Mr Oliver decided heโd keep the shelter on site by the weighbridge as a โsmoko hutโ, souvenir and talking point.
โWeโre saving it, people might have seen that little ad of it being for sale,โ he said.
โWhilst we received offers, we put it to one side โฆ We didnโt want to see somebody hurt themselves putting it in their yard.โ
As a lifetime member of the National Trust of Australia, in addition to collecting souvenirs and vintage cars, Mr Oliver has a strong sense of history, which in part motivated him to hold onto the shelter.
โIf you ask me, I say theyโre great, theyโre very iconic for Canberra,โ he said.
โWeโre seeing Canberra change pretty radically these days โฆ Weโre a new city and heritage is going quickly. Iโm opposed to anything being demolished that shouldnโt be.โ
Having operated from their site under a flight path adjacent to the Canberra Airport since 1992, Canberra Concrete Recyclers produce โabout a quarter of a million tonnesโ of recycled building material every year, with roughly 200 trucks passing through each day.
โIt comes in in the form of building waste, concrete or asphalt and is then reprocessed into building materials,โ Mr Oliver said.
โWeโre a true recycler, we pick, we pull waste material out of waste and currently send building waste to Veiolaโs massive (landfill) site near Tarago โฆ 300 tonnes per week.โ
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