Recycling Concrete

Recycling Concrete

Commodities from the construction site can be recycled into new products, e.g. into concrete. The benefits of recycling concrete are rising when using Sika plasticizers,: e.g. better consistency, lower water consumption, optimized life circle.

Popular material

Concrete is the most used construction material worldwide – summarized approx. 8 billion m³ per year. When structures made of concrete are demolished or renovated, concrete recycling has become a sustainable method of utilizing the rubble. Concrete was once routinely trucked to landfills for disposal, but recycling however has a number of benefits.

Sustainable business

One of the greatest benefits of recycling concrete is that this procedure helps to save natural resources. Also the environmental impact is reduced as exploitation of primary materials is not necessary and transportation ways are significantly shorter. Furthermore recycling minimizes the waste going to landfill.

Profitable recycling

But to recycle concrete in a profitable way, proper technology is needed. Mixed rubble granulates have many problematic foreign substances in their fines content. These uncontrolled materials lead to fluctuations in the quality and a high water absorption. Cleaning, the classification and separating the different sizes of materials are crucial and represent the keys to success.

Low water-cement ratio

A key project of Sika Switzerland which was lately finished is an office building of the Richi AG, which has been constructed with recycled concrete with 75% of mixed rubble granulates in its content. In total some 2,400 m³ of recycled concrete were used. The superplasticizer Sika ViscoCrete-3095 X with highly specific liquifaction properties and great water reduction made it possible to produce concrete with low water-cement ratio and at the same time easy processable in its consistance. Especially used in concrete with high sucking aggregates like recycled concrete Sika ViscoCrete-3095 X is outstanding for its consistency behaviour.

Please check out more informations about Sika Concrete Business