Can You Recycle Concrete  

As the population of the Earth grows, we find new uses for our space: homes, restaurants, office parks, shopping centers, multi-family buildings, and high-rises. New construction is exciting, and watching a shiny new building come together gives everyone in its area a hopeful sense of anticipation. But what happens to the old building materials that are left over from the first step in many construction projects: demolition? Where does all of that old concrete go, and what happens to it when it’s destroyed?

It’s a question that’s more and more important to us as the population grows. Around 10 billion tons of concrete are created every year, which amounts to roughly one cubic meter for every single citizen of the world! And over the course of the next forty years, we are forecasted to add another 2 trillion square feet of new development, which is about the same as adding the size of Paris to our developed world each week.

The proper disposal and recycling of our concrete will be a central concern as construction multiplies. Alpine Demolition’s goal is to be a spearhead of the world’s efforts to thoughtfully reuse concrete construction materials. Read on to learn more about the logistics of getting it done.

What Happens to Concrete After a Demolition?

One of the first things we must do when taking on a new construction project is destroy the existing structure. Especially in industrial or multi-use areas, this process generally involves concrete demolition. Concrete is found not just in the foundation of a previous structure, but also in surrounding sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, and poles. This concrete has to be broken up before it can be removed. The material gets crushed and hauled off. Where it goes next makes all the difference in terms of its environmental impact.

Can You Recycle Concrete and Reuse it?

Once it’s been removed from the demolition site, there are a few choices to be made regarding what to do with the material. Namely, the debris can either be disposed of in a landfill or recycled. Recycling concrete reduces the growing problem of overfilling landfills, and it also lessens the need for another high environmental impact activity: mining gravel.

How Concrete is Recycled:

Alpine Demolition crushes concrete using our state of the art demolition equipment. Once the material is pulverized, it’s processed through an impactor and filtered for dirt and other impure debris.

Once concrete has been poured, it’s impossible to tell what could be hidden inside it, from pieces of steel rebar to stray nails and pieces of wood that have fallen from elsewhere on the construction site. From here, there are several other processes that can be used to remove these unknown elements from the concrete. While pulverization is generally all that is needed to break down concrete, removal techniques for concrete inclusions is actually a growing field of cutting edge technology. Water flotations, magnetization, and even high voltage, focused strikes of lightning are all methods currently being used or researched for the purpose of purifying recycled concrete.

The Benefits of Recycling Concrete:

Recycling concrete is obviously the best choice we can make for reducing our carbon footprint and leaving the Earth better than we found it. But did you know that it could also help save real estate developers as well as cities and towns money? Recycling concrete lessens overall construction waste (which can be massive in volume) and preserves the longevity of our limited space in municipal landfills.

As an added bonus to others in our industry, it keeps builder disposal and tipping fees lower, too, as well as saves builders on disposal or tipping fees. Builders also get to spend less on material transport costs, since concrete can be demolished (and possibly reused) on the actual job site. For all of these reasons, upcycling concrete for use in new projects is gaining popularity in the construction industry. Many builders are looking to become LEED Green Building certified and will use recycled concrete whenever feasible.

What Can Recycled Concrete Be Used For?

Any use for brand new concrete is a use for recycled concrete, too! Recycled concrete can either be downcycled or upcycled – for example, it can be used for small purposes such as filling in holes in the road, or it can be turned into a new foundation or structure for a brand new building. Below are some of the most popular uses for recycled concrete:

Alpine Demolition Concrete Service

Alpine Demolition makes demolition clean-up hassle free and affordable with our high impact concrete crushing services. Instead of letting the old concrete byproduct from a construction site demolition pile up around a job site or in a landfill, Alpine Demolition seeks to help you make something useful from your left-over concrete. No amount is too small or large: from an outdated concrete patio slab in your backyard to the massive amounts of concrete from a commercial building demolition, our concrete crushing services have you covered.

Connect With Alpine Demolition for Your Concrete Crushing Needs.

Concrete is typically crushed to CA6 or PGE standards, and reused concrete is quickly becoming a popular part of the construction process among engineers and Department of Transportation agencies. Our concrete crushing service delivers significant savings to our clients, and we are a certified DBE operation for concrete crushing. Not only will we handle all the permits and paperwork, we’ll also come straight to your site to get the job done, making the process as easy as possible for you. Ready to get started? Contact us online or call us today at (630) 761–0700 to discuss your project and your needs.