Developments in the production and use of recycled demolition aggregate in the north west of England during the last 15 years

There have been considerable developments in Merseyside and generally in the North West of England over the last fifteen years with regards to the commercialisation of recycled demolition aggregate. Merseyside, and more specifically Liverpool is an urban region that has undergone regeneration in the last fifteen years. This required the demolition of old infrastructure and subsequent reconstruction required new construction materials. Investigations into the economics, practicalities and technicalities of using recycled demolition aggregate in concrete precast products started in 2001. At that time, there were six demolition contractors around Liverpool and they were using mobile crushers which were suited for road subbase material but not for the smaller sized aggregate required for precast concrete products. It was estimated that if all six worked round the clock, i.e. assuming there was enough feed material, they would still have found it difficult to maintain the required supplies for a single precast factory. Investment in equipment was therefore required to guarantee supply and improve the quality of the recycled demolition aggregate. The market forces and the incentives/drivers for construction companies to adopt sustainable practises have encouraged investment of several million pounds to be made in new recycling plants and this has resulted in “urban quarries”. This paper describes the developments in recycling of construction and demolition waste over the last fifteen years in Merseyside and shows that recycling is not only sustainable but also profitable