two yards in Rancho Cordova and Sacramento, Calif.
Recycler finds steady opportunities in its own yards, at aggregate sites.
The demolition of the Downtown Plaza in Sacramento, Calif., where an arena for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings is expected to open this fall, offered a concrete recycling opportunity for an area company.
Crete Crush, which operates two recycling facilities in the Sacramento area and also offers mobile crushing services, was responsible for recycling 80,000 tons of concrete from the plaza. A Crete Crush sister company, GR Trucking, hauled the concrete from the demolition site to the recycling yard about seven miles away.
Half of the recycled concrete will be made available to a local interchange project, says Adam Barrows, Crete Crush’s director of business development. The other half will be used for arena construction or other infrastructure projects.
“We’ve taken 99 percent of that concrete off site, crushed a portion of it and we’re getting ready to crush the remainder of it,” Barrows says in late February.
Three Powerscreen plants were used on the recycling job, Barrows says, including a Premiertrak 26-in. x 44-in. jaw crusher, a 1300 Maxtrak cone crusher and a Chieftain 2100 screening plant. The equipment typically floats between two Crete Crush recycling yards where the company accepts materials. One yard is in Sacramento, and the other sits east of the city in Rancho Cordova, Calif.
“Business is extremely steady,” Barrows says. “Rather than purchase two crushing and screening [fleets], our staff stays busy full-time going back and forth between the two yards.”
The sister company’s trucks regularly create opportunities for Crete Crush, as well.
“They allow us to direct the material to our facilities and provide material back to jobs with our own trucks,” Barrows says. “They also help us keep prices very competitive.”
The hauling responsibilities also give Crete Crush better control over the quality of the material.
“I’ve been a demolition contractor operating a recycle yard, and that’s great,” Barrows says. “But when you receive a whole bunch of dirty, oversized material, you get treated more like a landfill. And it’s difficult to sell that material back.”
Barrows says tonnages are easier to control when one company takes material from a demolition site, processes it in its own yard and delivers it for reuse at the original demo site.
“You’re never shorting the materials,” Barrows says. “You’re always giving back what you quote.”
According to Barrows, construction and demolition recycling opportunities are plentiful these days in California. The residential market has returned following the recession, he says. That market is driving much of Crete Crush’s business.
“During the recession we saw work primarily with Caltrans (the California Department of Transportation) on highway public works projects,” Barrows says. “Now, with residential coming back online, we’re seeing infrastructure such as pipeline projects and waste water treatment plants. A large increase in those is coming over the next two years.”
Lower fuel prices are having a positive impact on Crete Crush, as well.
“It’s been amazing,” Barrows says. “Our rates have been fixed the last few years. Even with the increases, our rates have remained fixed. But now that fuel prices have dropped we have a little bit of a reprieve with day-to-day costs.”