From humble beginnings as a one-truck waste transport business in 1950, the family-run Calleja Group is today driving the Bacchus Marsh-based JBD Industrial Park, and is behind a revolutionary and clean brown coal drying process. We are dedicated to an entrepreneurial, innovative business philosophy, throughout the scope of our various and complementary businesses.
History
In post-war 1950, Joe Calleja left Malta and came to Australia for a new life for his family. Based in Melbourne he purchased the first truck of the future Calleja fleet. He worked long days as a subcontractor carting scrap metal for industrial clients in Melbourne.
After arranging for his family to join him the business slowly expanded as his sons progressively joined the family business.
Today the fleet comprises over 130 specialised waste transport vehicles including large capacity tippers, hook lift and roll on/roll off vehicles. There is also a huge fleet of earth moving vehicles including dozers, excavators, fork lifts etc. supporting the many aspects of the operations of material handling, landfilling and mining.
Calleja Transport officially formed in 1971, operating from the family home in Ascot Vale. The operation moved to larger premises in Brooklyn in 1975 and then to the present head office site in Altona North in 1984.
David Calleja, head of the family company at the time, was a true entrepreneur and recognised the future in the combination of recycling, waste management and landfilling. He was the driving force behind the acquisition of Maddingley Brown Coal in 1990, an operating brown coal mine in Bacchus Marsh, which was also being utilised as a small inert landfill in the void created by mining since 1946.
Calleja have expanded the landfilling operations under licence and direct control of the Environment Protection Authority and today is receiving over 500,000 tonnes pa. of inert waste and low level contaminated soil.
Adjoining the mining site was the CSR Hardboard Mill comprising of 78 Ha. of zone 2 industrial land and 354 ha. of farming land. This site came up for auction in 1999 and was acquired by the Calleja Group to become JBD Industrial Park, expanding the landholding in Bacchus Marsh to over 1200 ha.
The industrial site contains a large manufacturing complex which employed over 450 people at the peak of CSR Hardboard Mills production. The site has been and is continuing to be developed as an industrial complex housing a variety of compatible manufacturing industries.
With the brown coal mine continuing to produce coal for a range of fertilisers and soil conditioners, over a 20 year period Calleja worked on the development of two patented technologies, COLDRY and MATMOR, to enhance the use of brown coal as a fuel and as a reductant to produce steel.
To assist this complex process, in 2003, Calleja constructed two pilot manufacturing plants at JBD with the plan to develop the technologies for future commercialisation. Once proven the patents were sold to Environmental Clean Technologies Ltd (ECT), a Melbourne listed company. ECT now operates the pilot plants at JBD.
Managing Director, Don Calleja said “This transaction aligns the interests of the COLDRY and MATMOR stakeholders. We are now shareholders in ECT and are pleased that the new owners of the technologies are in a better position to take both processes to full commercialisation. To a large extent, this transaction fulfils the dream of my brother, the late David Calleja, who worked tirelessly over 10 years on developing the COLDRY and MATMOR technologies.”
Calleja Today
Calleja operates two transfer stations, one at the main transport depot in Altona and the other at Newlands Road Coburg North.
The Altona site has a Green Star approved semi-automatic separation system to process construction waste from projects that demand that waste created must be processed and segregated to the highest possible level. There is also a facility to process normal industrial and demolition waste which is manually separated for timber, cardboard, metals and electronic waste. All remaining waste is transferred to the Bacchus Marsh landfill.
The Coburg site separates industrial waste into timber, concrete, bricks, cardboard, metals, electronic and green waste using manual and magnetic separation with the balance going to the Bacchus Marsh landfill.
The main transport depot in Altona services the entire transport and materials handling fleet with qualified mechanics working on daily and overnight shifts. The site also develops and constructs new trailers and equipment as well as repairing existing equipment and bins.
Calleja properties in the Maddingley Precinct.
