New facility can fully recycle demolition concrete without loss of quality

Heidelberg Materials’ new recycling facility at its production site near Katowice, Poland. (PHOTO: Heidelberg Materials)

Said to be the first-of-its-kind, the facility features a proprietary crushing mechanism with separation and sorting capabilities that enable it to fully recycle demolition concrete, and substitute virgin materials in concrete production.

With a capacity of up to 100 tonnes of concrete per hour, Heidelberg Materials says it believes it is the first company in the industry to introduce selective concrete separation at this scale.

Nicola Kimm, Chief Sustainability Officer and Member of the Managing Board of Heidelberg Materials, said: “Thanks to our strong commitment to continuous innovation, we are now introducing a revolutionary and commercially viable technology combining circularity with decarbonisation on our path to net zero.

“Innovations like these help to accelerate our transformation and highlight our ambition to closing the loop offering circular alternatives for 50% of our concrete products by 2030.”

The facility will utilise Heidelberg’s ReConcrete process, in which demolition concrete is broken down into its original constituents through its new crushing mechanism, which produces fractions such as sand and gravel to a quality that it claims is “equivalent to the one of virgin raw materials”.

The recycling facility features a proprietary crushing mechanism that can fully recycling demolition concrete. (PHOTO: Heidelberg Materials)

Jon Morrish, Member of the Managing Board of Heidelberg Materials and responsible for the Group area Europe, said: “With our award-winning ReConcrete approach, we have already shown on a pilot scale that concrete can be fully recycled without loss of quality.

“Our new recycling plant marks an important milestone of implementing this innovative technology on a completely new scale, reinforcing our industry-leading position in driving circularity”.