Our story

For more than 120 years, SAS Laboratory has been Queensland’s preferred analytical laboratory providing technical support and scientific results for government and industry.

As times have changed and techniques advanced, we have learned from the world’s best. Today, our expertise is used in industries such as mining, oil and gas, mineral processing, chemical processing, power and energy, food and beverage man­u­fac­tur­ing, health and agriculture.

In August 2012, Urban Utilities, one of the largest water dis­tri­bu­tion-retailers in Australia, acquired SAS Laboratory from Brisbane City Council. This acquisition supports Urban Utilities in its role of delivering quality drinking water, recycled water and sewerage services to residential and commercial customers across a 14,384 km² service territory in South East Queensland. It also provides Urban Utilities with an opportunity to diversify its service offerings to include sampling, analytical and consulting services to a range of industries.

Located at 180 Ashridge Road, Darra in Brisbane, our laboratory is designed to provide optimum workflow paths from sample reception to the analytical workbench. The laboratory building incor­por­ates many envir­on­ment­ally efficient features such as high levels of natural lighting, energy efficient artificial lighting, solar hot water, and rainwater storage. Rainwater is used to feed the laboratory water puri­fic­a­tion system and waste from this system is recycled for non-potable use on site.

We are a National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) accredited laboratory providing sampling services, and chemical and micro­bi­o­lo­gic­al analysis of thousands of samples every week.

The National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) provides independent assurance of technical competence and compliance with ISO/IEC17025 (general require­ments for the competence of testing and calibration labor­at­or­ies) for labor­at­or­ies and testing facilities throughout Australia and overseas.

Since 1996, SAS Laboratory has maintained NATA accred­it­a­tion for a wide range of chemical and biological analyses as well as sampling.

Our methodology is based on American Public Health Association (APHA) Standard Methods, Australian Standards, United States Envir­on­ment­al Protection Agency (US EPA) methods and industry accepted methods.

Full details of our chemical and micro­bi­o­lo­gic­al scope of accred­it­a­tion are available on the NATA website.

SAS Laboratory has also been certified as confirming to the require­ments of ISO14001 Envir­on­ment­al Management Systems. This includes our provision of analytical services, and field sampling. More on this cer­ti­fic­a­tion is available through the certifier’s website.