Concrete recycling plant cuts carbon impact

The $22 million Laverton Concrete Recycling Plant was built by the Alex Fraser Group (AFG) and ideas, is an engineering services firm which takes a whole business approach.
The plant is the sixth that AFG has built across Victoria and Queensland since 1987 and aims to help the company reach its target of recycling 40 million tones of construction and demolition waste by 2014. The plants use recycled material gathered from many different sources across a wide range of construction and demolition projects.
The most significant environmental benefit of recycling concrete materials comes as a result of the recovery of steel from reinforced concrete waste, avoiding the energy requirement of new steel production. As the recycled material is softer than virgin rock, it also requires less energy to crush.
According to a recent RMIT University Life Analysis comparing AFG’s crushed concrete aggregate with traditionally quarried stone aggregate, the recycled concrete materials have a carbon impact 65 per cent less than the equivalent freshly-mined quarry materials.
Since its first concrete recycling plant was established, AFG has recycled over 20 million tones of construction and demolition waste. Every 20 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste recycled and used in this way saves the CO2 green house gas equivalent of taking 23,000 cars off the road for one year.
For more information visit: www.ideaservices.com.au