River Sands Overview

We believe that living and working spaces can be created in an attractive, functional and sustainable way. Our team constantly strives to provide optimal solutions that create value, a better built environment and enhanced living outcomes. We commit to excellence in product quality, service and delivery to assist our customers in meeting their growth and performance objective.

Providing sands in a moist or kiln-dried form is the focus of the River Sands industrial sands business. After commencing operations in 1974, the business and our equipment has constantly evolved to provide specifically graded sands and gravels to meet the needs of many industries.

Sand gradings and location

The unique grading of the sands can be found in the Eagleby sand deposit. The sands are worn from an old river course and consist of mainly siliceous gradings of up to 1.7mm. This ancient deposit is dramatically different from the alluvial sand processing operations in the Jacobs Well area which typically consist of beach sands or fine sands with a maximum sizing of 0.4mm.

Washing and screening processes

The sands are dredged with mud and gravels removed at a trommel and then pumped over approximately one kilometre to our sand separation plant at Carbrook. This purpose-designed equipment separates the sand into specific gradings.

For those applications where the removal of the fine sand particles is essential, we use a purpose-designed classifier at our adjoining factory site, to process the fine and medium sands to create beautifully washed Playground Soft Fall Sands that meet the Australian Standards for 2-metre and 3-metre Playground Soft falls. The fine particles are captured and then used in less demanding building product applications to ensure waste is minimised.

Screening, drying and sizing of sands

In addition to the washing and screening operations, we further treat the sands to convert them to gradings that are designed for use in Water Filtration, Synthetic Turf, Tilers Coarse sands and render applications. Some of these sands are supplied in a moist form (up to 6% moisture) but most are kiln dried to remove all dust and impurities and then packed into 20kg or one-tonne bulk bags.

Decorative Pebbles and Gravels

A variety of colours and sizes of naturally rounded pebbles or machine rounded gravels are also processed and packed at our Carbrook Factory site. These grades are made to meet the requirements of water filtration plants and high-end landscaping applications.