KANSAS
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT
BILL GRAVES, GOVERNOR
Gary R. Mitchell, Secretary
For Immediate Release
Contact: Mike Heideman, 785-296-1529
Concrete Recycling Finds Plenty of Business in Region Lacking Quarries
SALINA -- Steve McGee saw the business possibilities. People would pay to dispose of discarded concrete; the same concrete could be sold for many times the cost to transform it into aggregate.
Now, that's exactly what McGee is doing.
Much of central and western Kansas lacks the limestone deposits that yield aggregate preferred for road building and construction. But virtually every corner of Kansas has plenty of discarded concrete. Crushed concrete is the equivalent of limestone for building purposes. McGee could see that a concrete crushing operation in his Salina hometown could stay busy and turn a profit.
"We are 48 miles from the closest rock quarry, an ideal situation for my business," McGee said.
McGee can sell crushed concrete on the retail market for about $8 a ton. Limestone mined and transported from a quarry can cost more than $24 a ton. He points out that quarrying limestone is labor-intensive, uses far more energy than crushing concrete and can be more dangerous because of blasting and transporting.
Best of all, when McGee's work is done, mounds of discarded concrete are gone.
Initially McGee found it nearly impossible to persuade lenders to invest in his idea. He received a $25,000 loan to purchase equipment -- not nearly what he would eventually need to equip a complete concrete crushing operation. He credits a $123,000 grant from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment last year for making the difference between going broke and a going business.
"I started Concrete Recycling three years ago on a shoestring," McGee said. "It was tough going at first. One day my wife and I had to collect aluminum cans to raise enough money to buy fuel for the concrete crusher."
The smaller equipment McGee used for the first three years required a lot of work. Large chunks of concrete had to be broken up by tractor-mounted jackhammers before being fed to the crusher. Reinforcing steel had to be picked out by hand. Regular maintenance added another four hours to each work day, cutting into efficiency. Although there was plenty of concrete to crush and customers standing in line for the finished product, McGee's equipment wasn't capable of the volume necessary to meet the demand.
With the KDHE grant, McGee has now purchased equipment that is three times the size of his first crusher. The new crusher -- one of the largest in the state-- can accept concrete chunks that are 32-by-54 inches, about the size of an office desk. It has a much bigger magnet, capable of removing reinforcing steel, which also can be recycled.
And it is mobile. Although massive, the new equipment can be moved to a site in two or three days, from dismantling to reassembly. So far, McGee hasn't traveled far to keep busy.
"I sold 5,000 tons to Kanopolis Reservoir a few weeks ago," he said. "This year contractors are going to tear out 200,000 tons of concrete interstate near Salina." If McGee is awarded that contract, or even a portion of it, the income will go a long way toward paying off his new equipment, he said.
"Even if we only tear out 50,000 tons of concrete in Salina next year, at $6 a ton wholesale, that's $300,000," he said. "That's money that goes right back into the community. Plus, that's 50,000 tons that we reused and didn't bury."
Even the smallest jobs help, McGee said. Someone replacing their patio who has broken up two tons of concrete would have to pay $56 per ton at a landfill to dispose of the material. Concrete Recycling accepts the material at no charge, crushes it and sells it.
Earlier this year, Concrete Recycling crushed the concrete from a large grain elevator that had been brought down. The company that owned the elevator paid McGee to crush the concrete, then ordered 500 tons of crushed concrete road base.
"I told them, 'You know, you guys are buying back that elevator you just took down,'" McGee said. Both McGee and the customer chuckled at the irony.