Concrete recycling

When structures made of concrete are to be demolished, concrete recycling is an increasingly common method of disposing of the rubble. Concrete debris was once routinely shipped to landfills for disposal, but recycling has a number of benefits that have made it a more attractive option in this age of greater environmental awareness, more environmental laws, and the desire to keep construction costs down.

Concrete aggregate collected from demolition sites is put through a crushing machine, often along with asphalt, bricks, dirt, and rocks. Crushing facilities accept only uncontaminated concrete, which must be free of trash, wood, paper and other such materials. Metals such as rebar are accepted, since they can be removed with magnets and other sorting devices and melted down for recycling elsewhere. The remaining aggregate chunks are sorted by size. Larger chunks may go through the crusher again.

Crushing at the actual construction site using portable crushers reduces construction costs and the pollution generated when compared with transporting material to and from a quarry. Large road-portable plants can crush concrete and asphalt rubble at up to 600 tons per hour or more. These systems normally consist of a rubble crusher, side discharge conveyor, screening plant, and a return conveyor from the screen to the crusher inlet for reprocessing oversize materials. Compact, self-contained mini-crushers are also available that can handle up to 150 tons per hour and fit into tighter areas.^[1]

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Uses of Recycled Concrete

Smaller pieces of concrete are used as gravel for new construction projects. Sub-base gravel is laid down as the lowest layer in a road, with fresh concrete or asphalt poured over it. Crushed recycled concrete can also be used as the dry aggregate for brand new concrete if it is free of contaminants.

Benefits

There are a variety of benefits in recycling concrete rather than dumping it or burying it in a landfill.

• Keeping concrete debris out of landfills saves space there.
• Using recycled material as gravel reduces the need for gravel mining
• Using recycled concrete as the base material for roadways reduces the pollution involved in trucking material.

Concerns

There has been concerns about the recycling of painted concrete due to possible lead content. The Army Corps of Engineers' Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) and others have conducted studies to see if lead-based paint in crushed concrete actually poses a hazard. Results concluded that concrete with lead-based paint would be able to be used as clean fill without impervious cover but with some type of soil cover.^[2]

References