On-Site Reuse of Concrete From Demolition Projects for New Construction
Projects– Rich Jones, John Gottleib, Richard Scheidet, and Peter D. Pohlot
During 2006, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) demolished 10
buildings/structures while constructing 2 new facilities (the Research Support Building
and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials). This paper details how the concrete from
the demolition projects was re-used as part of the new construction projects at a
significant cost savings to the Laboratory.
BNL has an authorization from the New York Department of Environmental
Conservation to operate what’s known as the “Borrow Pit”. The Borrow Pit is an area
where sand was mined for a Laboratory project, leaving a large void space in the
firebreak area south of the Laboratory. The authorization allows BNL to fill the void
space with Construction & Demolition (C&D) debris. Approximately 4-years ago when
the Borrow Pit was close to capacity, a decision was made to bring in a concrete crusher
and mine the Pit to generate Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA) to be used around the
Laboratory’s firebreak road system to stabilize the roadways and as new road base for
new parking areas and roads. Prior to this, the Laboratory purchased virgin crushed blue
stone to stabilize the firebreaks.
During 2006, numerous older structures (pre-1950) were demolished due to issues such
as advanced stages of deterioration, energy inefficiency, and repairs not being cost
effective. The following table details the buildings that were demolished and the
respective amounts of material (in tons) that were recycled (concrete and metals) and the
remains that were sent off-site to a C&D management facility (i.e., roofing shingles,
lumber, siding, etc…)
Building
Concrete Metals C&D
86
300
3
260
326
5
0
18
400 parking lot
2000
0
0
422
80
0
160
445
2600
2
12
527
0
0
150
707/707A
220
20
0
707B
32
0
0
715
6
0
6
753
12
0
12
750 CT & Tank Storage
250
10
0
Totals (tons)
5505
35
618
These demolition projects generated over 5500 tons concrete, which was crushed at the
Borrow Pit and recycled as RCA (see Figures 1 and 2). The majority of this RCA
(approximately 4800 tons) was used as the predominant base for the parking lots of the
two new construction projects – the Research Support Building and the Center for
Page 2
Functional Nanomaterials (see Figures 3 and 4). The remainder was used for
position: absolu