[Sustainable Construction reuse of concrete or materials from demolitions.]

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Sustainable Construction Reuse of Concrete or Materials from Demolitions

INTRODUCTION

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is a major contributor to Army installations' solid waste burden. Landfill space is diminishing, no new landfills are being built on installations, and there is a growing need to reduce the amount of waste. As part of the Department of Defense (DOD), the Army is encouraged to meet the P2 Measures of Merit goal to divert 40% (by weight) of solid waste from landfills or incineration. This, coupled with the fact that the supply of natural materials is limited, has encouraged the public and Government to use recycled materials. One such material with high potential for reuse is concrete.

By weight, concrete makes up the largest portion of the solid waste stream. Billions of tons of concrete have been used since World War II to construct buildings, bridges, dams, roads, and other structures. When the useful life of these structures is over, the materials from which they were built will find their way into the waste stream as rubble. Throughout the United States, many military installations will close and convert to civilian use over the next several years. Thousands of structures on those installations will be removed. A DoD survey of all installations identified 8,000 buildings, totaling 50 million square feet, as candidates for removal. If these buildings are removed using traditional demolition techniques, hundreds of thousands of tons of waste will be generated and disposed of in landfills.

Landfills are becoming increasingly difficult to find, are too remote from the demolition site, or are too costly to maintain. At the same time, sources of supply of suitable aggregate for making concrete are continually being exhausted. The recycling of building demolition waste materials into new buildings can provide a solution to these problems (De Pauw).

Grinding reinforced concrete buildings can reduce the volume of land filled debris by roughly 80%. While volume reduction itself is beneficial, recycling the waste creates a product that can be sold or used for fill, bank stabilization pavement for trails, and other purposes, thereby reducing further environmental burdens by substituting recycled aggregates for natural virgin aggregates.

Scope of Work

This PWTB contains guidelines for the use of recycled concrete as an aggregate. Most previous research covers the recycling of concrete pavements. Much of the information here pertains to all-Portland cement recycling. However, Army installations have been reluctant to reuse rubble from buildings. Information is needed to identify the behavior of building rubble when used in variety of applications and to maximize the reuse ...