Some Benefits to Crushing and Recycling in Construction
As we all are aware, environmental protection is becoming more and more important as we try to reduce carbon emissions and be more friendly to the planet on which we all live, and in relation to recycling and construction sustainability one of the key areas of concern is the amount of material we send to landfill.
In the ‘bad old days’ the leftover hardcore, aggregate, concrete, bricks, tarmac and general ‘hard waste’ from demolition and construction sites would end up being sent to landfill, which was a very expensive way of disposing of this material, particularly as this type of material is heavy and landfill sites generally charge by the tonne… not to mention the Government Landfill Tax, which is currently £91.35 per tonne, so along with the actual tipping fee from the landfill site you could end up paying nearly £3,000 to ‘throw away’ an 8-wheel wagon load of hard waste.
In the past it was very expensive to try and recycle this material, which is why it went to tip however, now; with the development of highly efficient crushing and recycling equipment, like our new Kleeman MC110R hybrid tracked jaw crusher, it is more cost effective to try and recycle this type of material where possible.
Approximately 200,000,000 tonnes of aggregates are used each year in the UK and about 25% come from recycled sources, and this figure is growing as recycling becomes more cost-effective, and here at Hardcore Crushing Ltd (the clue is in the company name!), we have a fleet of modern excavators and crushers with highly trained operators available to turn your expensive hard waste into valuable reusable aggregate.
What are the benefits of crushing and recycling aggregates?
Cost Saving…using recycled aggregates over newly quarried materials saves money as they are less expensive to produce and cheaper to buy. Plus, if you are recycling the materials locally then this will reduce or even remove the costs of transporting the aggregates. And on top of the cost-saving offered by the cheaper material and transport savings, you’re also not paying the landfill sites (and the Government) to throw away good material.
Environmentally friendly… There is increasing pressure on the UK’s landfill capacity, and increasing pressure on construction sites to divert waste away from landfill (through Government financial penalty in the form of landfill tax), all in an attempt to meet overall sustainability targets.
Recycled Aggregate is regarded to be a ‘green’ construction material and by using recycled aggregate you are reducing the amount of newly quarried aggregates which are created, so this is saving the planet’s natural resources.
Also by recycling on-site wherever possible you are removing hundreds of wagon journeys from the roads; saving fuel and cutting emissions.
Example… (purely theoretical) Let’s say you had 1000 tonnes of waste brick and concrete on a site, which in round terms equates to 50x 8-wheel wagon loads. If you threw this away to the landfill, that’s 50 HGV journeys to the tip (which might be many miles away), then the tip would charge say £150 per tonne to tip, which is a bill of £150,000. Then if you need 1000 tonnes of hardcore on-site to use in the construction of the project, that’s another 50 HGV wagon journeys from the quarry to the site and a cost of say £250 a load for the quarried stone (depending upon specification) so that’s another bull of £12,500 so that’s cost you £162,500 in relation to the aggregates in this particular example.
BUT, if you were able to crush and recycle this material on site it might only cost you between £5,000 and worst-case £10,000 and it would save say 100 HGV journeys on the local roads, so that’s an overall saving of over £150,000, a massive reduction in ‘material miles’, and a major increase in your scheme’s ‘sustainability’.
So for more examples of how Hardcore Crushing Ltd can save you money and turn you into an ‘Environmental champion’, please contact our office on 01254 233045 for further details.
