Photo courtesy of Utah Transportation Commission

Utah Department of Transportation crews recycle old Bangerter Highway concrete.

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is recycling old concrete on site on Bangerter Highway to help build the highway's new interchanges.

Crews on the Bangerter 4700 South project finished recycling approximately 15,000 cu. yds. of concrete – enough to fill two Goodyear Blimps. UDOT opted to recycle the material on site instead of hauling off the material to another location to reduce the number of truck trips in the area.

"In the past, all of this concrete would have gone to waste and now is being recycled and reused for UDOT projects," UDOT Region 2 director Robert Stewart said. "This pavement has been here for 30 years, and it's great to be able to give it new life."

Photo courtesy of Utah Transportation Commission

Crews have worked every day for the past five months on the recycling process.

To accomplish the task, crews use heavy machinery to break up the old sections of the highway. Then that material is placed into an onsite crushing machine. The crushing machine has a large magnet inside to separate the concrete from the metal rebar, which is also recycled.

Once the large cement chunks are crushed into tiny pieces, UDOT starts reprocessing it into a road base for the new interchange.

"We are taking the old Bangerter Highway, crushing it up and making it into a product to put into the new Bangerter Highway," said Jake Nielson, contractor project manager on the Bangerter 4700 South project. "What most people don't know is that most of the materials in our highways are 100 percent recyclable, whether that's concrete or asphalt."

For more than a decade, UDOT has worked to eliminate stoplights on Bangerter Highway by converting intersections into interchanges. This year, UDOT is building interchanges at 13400 South, 9800 South, 4700 South and 2700 West.

Bangerter Highway is one of the Salt Lake Valley's largest north-to-south corridors, moving an average of 60,000 vehicles daily. Removing stoplights and converting all intersections into freeway-style interchanges will enhance safety and help keep traffic moving in the ever-growing west side of the Salt Lake Valley.

This story also appears on Aggregate Equipment Guide.

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