Recycled Concrete - A Green Alternative To Tiles, Stone Or Granite

May 10, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment

Did you ever consider using concrete for flooring instead of stone, granite, marble or tiles to store the passive solar heat? Concrete can be a very green option, especially if the concrete is made locally or within 100 miles. Shipping tiles and granite plates from hundreds or thousands of miles away is not a sustainable option.

Check and ask where the floor tiles are shipped from, next time you are at your local hardware store. I bet most of them are shipped from far away.

Concrete does not have to be a drab gray and have a rough surface. It is actually quite amazing how beautiful concrete finishes can look. And you get to chose from many colors and textures. The Concrete Network is a great source to see what is available and where and how to find a local supplier.

I was quite surprised myself when I first started looking at concrete for finished flooring. I was very much prejudiced and had only an image of gray, rough concrete, like my basement walls. I also was surprised of the many additional applications for concrete, besides walls and basement floor slab. Building green homes does require us to sometimes think outside the box and be willing to learn something new.

Industry and state governments are re-using concrete more and more. Concrete is currently recycled in 38 states and used as an aggregate base in road construciton for example. In 11 states, the concrete is recycled it into new portland cement concrete. One California manufacturer, Quick Crete, Inc uses 21% post-consumer and industrial waste in all their standard products. They now have developed Ecocast, which contains 70% recyccled materials.

Concrete can be functional, made with recycled material, can be recycled, made locally and look good!

Here are some other uses for recycled concrete:

Sustainable recycled concrete countertops - Earthcrete is a family of concrete mixes, all composed of proprietary formulas which make use of recycled paper fibers, glass, ceramics (taken from municipal land and waste sites), industrial byproducts such as fly ash and plentiful, …

eco-X, recycled concrete surfaces for modernists - Here’s eco-X, an extreme concrete product offered by meldUSA. Eco-X is made of a blend of 70% post-consumer and post-industrial recycled materials and cement (not sure if they use fly ash at all). MeldUSA says the product has the …

Windfaul landscape artists - I ran into Sean Faul of Windfaul landscape today and this is a picture of a recycled concrete retaining wall that is a part of his sustainable garden project. Everything on site that gets ripped out to make way for the new design is to …