Almost half of the waste produced in a year in Italy comes from the construction sector.
We are talking about
C&D waste, i.e. resulting from construction and demolition activities. 70 million tons, equal to approximately 48% of total non-hazardous waste. These are mostly waste from the construction and demolition of buildings or from renovation work.
In the world of construction, as well as road maintenance,
the issue of recovering material deriving from demolition and scarification is becoming increasingly urgent, with the dual objective of combining environmental protection with economic savings. Those who work in the sector are well aware of the
huge costs of transporting and disposing of aggregates and material from demolition, as well as the costs for the purchase and transport of new raw materials to the site.
The urgency from the market has also pushed institutions to accelerate the pace on the issue, which found its first regulatory confirmation in last year's
End of Waste Decree (DM 152 of 27 September 2022). The decree establishes that waste material resulting from construction and demolition subjected to recovery operations will no longer be classified as such, thus implementing a first important intervention for the circular development of the construction sector.
Simex is expanding the crushing and recycling approach including the regeneration of all those materials which, once volumetrically reduced, screened or scarified, can be immediately recovered on site, in a sustainable and circular perspective, with both economic and environmental advantages.
We visited a construction site in the province of Modena where a
CBE 40 rotor crusher bucket was used in the
on-site volumetric reduction of aggregates and rubble produced by the demolition of a stable. The materials, pre-treated with a pulverizer, were largely made up of reinforced concrete and bricks.
The choice of secondary crushing using a Simex rotor bucket was dictated by the customer's desire to reuse the aggregates, reduced to a suitable size, for the construction of the screed and the foundation of the new stable, which will be built on the remains of the previous one.
Reclaimed concrete thus becomes a precious material that guarantees both adequate ventilation - preventing the moisture infiltration from the ground - and structural stability.
Designed to reduce the volume of aggregates directly on site,
CBE crusher buckets for excavator find their perfect application field when working with
waste material deriving from demolition and excavations. Thanks to the rotor system, they
don’t suffer iron rods, soil (even dump or wet), wood and deformable materials. CBE 40 is specifically designed to be mounted on 24-40 tons excavators and exerts a cutting force of 152 kN driven by high-displacement direct-drive radial piston motors. With a capacity of 1 cubic meter, the bucket stands out for its robust construction and the reliability of all parts subject to wear.
Mounted on a Liebherr R 926, Simex CBE 40 worked mainly with reinforced concrete with a strong presence of iron rods, with a diameter varying between 6- and 14-mm.
Rebar, in demolition process, tends to get tangled making the loading phase and the subsequent crushing even more complex. But the CBE 40 didn’t have any difficulties in the volumetric reduction of the aggregates, also thanks to the
automatic drum inversion system, which optimized the work flow in particularly difficult conditions. In the standard configuration, the output size of the crushed material made by the CBE 40 is 0-70 mm but it can be modified by varying the distance between the counter tools.
The
CBE crusher bucket guaranteed an
average hourly production of 20-25 m3/h. A result that fully satisfied both the operator and the owner of the building who commissioned the demolition.
The CBE thus becomes a real mobile rotor crusher, capable of recovering all the waste aggregate directly on site
Cutting down the time and costs related to transport, minimizing the purchase of new raw materials, means optimizing the logistical and economic dynamics of the job-site, while keeping a
watchful eye on the issue of environmental impact and the recovery of those materials which, subject to specific local regulations, could be considered a
resource and no longer waste.