There is a great shortage of raw materials, and the many large construction works that are planned do nothing good for that problem. But instead of fetching new aggregate from the gravel pit or from the seabed, you can reuse what has already been used.
Becomes road fill
Today, the majority of construction waste from, for example, demolitions and excess or faulty production goes to road fill or landfill. If it is instead crushed and used as aggregate for new concrete elements, it will solve both a supply and climate problem. As the scarcity of raw materials increases, they have collected further and further away and shipped in – with a not inconsiderable CO2 footprint as a result.
Three years of development work
Recycon Element, which manufactures concrete elements, already processes 200 tons of construction waste per day, and there is much more to come. The company has spent three years developing and patenting concrete recipes with 100 per cent recycled aggregate:
– It has been tried ever since the construction of the Great Belt link, and now we have shown that it can be done. We have crushed an entire house with bricks, plaster, glass and Rockwool, and we are building a house from it on our own plot. That project is intended as a solution for how to approach the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war, says development director Jens Flade-Rasmussen.
Same price as new aggregate
According to Recycon Element, the price of recycled aggregate is the same as that of new raw materials, and the company does not have major problems with selling the circularly produced elements either:
– We are completely sold out. We can deliver 65 elements corresponding to 40 cubic meters per day, but we don’t want to just be a block producer, says the development director.
Not waste but raw material
– Our mission is a showdown with the “this is how we usually do it” thinking. Used building materials are not waste – they are raw materials, says Jens Flade-Rasmussen.
The circular way of thinking repeats itself in all stages of the process. In the near future, all elements from Recycon Element will be equipped with a chip. When the chip is scanned, you can see what the aggregate in the element is made of. That way there is full traceability. The company also works with a concept that the customer pays a deposit for the element. When it has served its function, the customer gets his deposit back when the element is delivered back to Recycon Element to be recycled as aggregate. Already today, it is an invariable requirement that an end-of-life element either returns to Recycon Element or is handled correctly.
Femern Project can become a raw material supplier
Recycon Element has a good eye for the Fehmarn project. Share as a potential customer for the company’s elements, but just as much as a “supplier” of raw materials:
– There is always recycled concrete, and we would like to help them get rid of that instead of the waste company, says Jens Flade-Rasmussen.
Also read:
Burnt waste replaces stable gravel as base layer
A lot to be saved on the raw materials in construction work
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency meets the raw materials industry
