What are the Benefits of Utilising Demolished Concrete Waste for New Construction?
28 February 2020Demolished concrete waste is often considered as the common remains in a demolition or remodelling project. Normally, people fail to make use of demolished concrete waste as it is commonly disposed and rendered obsolete. What they do not know is that there are benefits of utilising concrete waste for new construction. Below are some of them.
Utilising Demolished Concrete Waste Provides Useful Products
Once your demolished concrete waste and debris have been cleaned up and removed from your job site they don’t simply get hauled off to the nearest landfill. In fact, whenever possible, the waste from concrete removal is recycled and reused in a number of ways.
Concrete Aggregate
Crushed recycled concrete can also be used as the dry aggregate for brand new concrete if it is free of contaminants. The California Department of transportation (Caltrans), for example allows the use of recycled concrete aggregate, or RCA, for specific applications. And the City of San Francisco has approved the use of RCA as an aggregate concrete for use in curbs, gutter, sidewalk, and street base.
Road Building
Smaller pieces of concrete are regularly used as gravel for new road construction projects. Sub-base gravel is laid down as the lowest layer in a road, with fresh concrete or asphalt poured over it. In addition, concrete pavements can be broken in place and used as a base layer for an asphalt pavement through a process called rubblization.
Gabion Construction
Wire gabions, or cages, can be filled with crushed concrete and then stacked together to provide economical retaining walls. These gabions can also be used to protect embankments or other structures. In such cases even bigger sizes of the crushed and recycled concrete can be used. These gabions function well because of their weight and density.
Riprap
Larger pieces of crushed concrete can be used as riprap revetments, which have become an effective and well-used method for controlling stream bank erosion. This material can be seen along the shoreline, around ditch pipe, and in much landscaping. Typically, the material is usually broken down to pieces between 10 and 18 inches across.
Landscaping Products
Coming from certain crushing facilities, well graded and aesthetically pleasing materials are produced for use as a substitute for landscaping stone or aggregate. Some types of reused concrete, also known as “urbanite,” can be used for constructing benches, garden walls, rockeries, and raised beds, foundations for terraces, as well as paths and patios.
Aside from those, demolished concrete can also keep concrete debris out of landfills, saves landfill space, conserve natural resources by reducing the need for gravel mining, water, coal, oil and gas, reduce the pollution involved in trucking material, create more employment opportunities, drag down the cost for buying raw materials and transporting the waste to landfill sites and save 5148L of water and 900kg of carbon dioxide.
Consult with EcoCrush in utilising demolished concrete for new construction. We produce top-quality products from recycled crushed rock for use in the construction and building industries. No load is too small or too large for us to handle.
