Quarry Products

Denis Mertens took on the role of president of the European Aggregates Association just four months ago, but he is already building a clear view of his strategy to take the industry forward. He talked to Claire Symes about his plans

Lafarge has launched a new service in the UK to minimise the amount of wasted cement sent to landfill. Under the scheme, customers will be able to arrange collection of out of date materials through the existing ordering system. The collection and recycling service applies to all Lafarge's packed cements, whether a merchant customer wishes to dispose of one bag or a full lorry load. The new service is a follow on from the pallet recycling service launched last year.

Rock blasted from a new cross border tunnel on the new Turin to Lyon rail link is to be crushed and screened as aggregates by Holcim and Vicat. Project developer LTF has estimated that the 57km tunnel will generate 14million m3 of material and it is likely that most of the aggregates produced will be reused in the scheme.

An industry with strong company consolidation and high use of recycled materials is the result of a maturing aggregates market in the UK. Adrian Greeman reports. In the last ten years the UK aggregates sector has come to be dominated by five major companies, all multi-national and all operating in allied sectors such as asphalt, cement and ready mixed concrete sales and contracting. They all offer an increasingly sophisticated product, in both quality of material and in customer service, in order to compe

CE markings of asphalt materials will bring traceability that could clear the way for easier high performance recycling. Claire Symes reports. With gaining planning permission to extract virgin aggregates becoming increasingly difficult in Europe, the need to recycle has never been greater. But although the volume of recycled asphalt planings (RAP) being reused in roads is growing, most are placed back as base courses with additional virgin aggregates being used to form the surface courses.

The UK’s aggregates organisation the Mineral Products Association has called on government to reduce the level of and re-assess the environmental rationale of the Aggregates Levy. The call comes after the government announced plans to scrap the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund through which part of the tax weas used to fund local projects around quarries. According to the MPA, the Aggregates Levy is nominally an environmental tax, but has been subject to no environmental assessment, has no related enviro

Reducing operational costs was one of the main drivers to Hanson investing in a new wheeled loader for its Ribblehead Works site in Clitheroe, UK. The cement works, which is part of the Heidelberg Cement group, has recently taken delivery of a new Volvo L350F loader for front line duties in a bid to improve fuel efficiency. According to Volvo, the 52tonne loader is the 14th machine of this type to have been delivered to a Heidelberg company in Europe. The company has said that the machines have been “chosen

Breedon Aggregates has reported that it has secured two contracts for work on the A9 trunk road in Scotland worth over £6million for the supply and lay aggregates and asphalt. Under one of the contracts Breedon Aggregates will lay the pavement layers on both the existing dual carriageway section and a new three-kilometre extension to the north of the existing dual carriageway at Crubenmore. In all, the company will supply and in part lay over 80,000tonnes of quarry materials and pavement layers to the contr

Latvia-based paving specialist Silverstone has opened a new production facility in Talsi. The new plant will use sand and gravel from the company’s local quarries to produce up to 3000m2 of paving blocks and slabs, curbstones and concrete blocks per day.