BP Concrete Lessens Environmental Impact With Waste Management and Recyclability Strategies

Winnipeg, MB – As demand for more eco-friendly, carbon-neutral building materials grows, Building Products and Concrete Supply (BP Concrete) is rising to meet the challenge with each project it takes on.

The team actively looks for ways to lessen the company’s environmental impact through initiatives such as capturing, treating, and reusing water; improving air quality through dust collection; recycling returned product; and developing cement mixes that will significantly reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

BP Concrete’s Operations Manager, Ryan Braun,​ noted that wastewater from washing out delivery trucks is an issue that every ready-mix concrete supplier faces. BP Concrete looked for a solution to the problem, which came in the form of a reclaimer.

“We were the first supplier in Manitoba to commission a reclaimer approximately 10 years ago,” he explained. “A reclaimer recaptures the wash water and small amounts of returned concrete, and then separates the aggregate from the slurry and piles it beside the reclaimer. The sand and stone mix then gets fed back into the concrete plant to be used in fresh concrete.”

As well, the slurry water is pumped to each of BP Concrete’s onsite plants to be recycled back into concrete mixes. Ryan added that there is new and exciting technology currently being studied that will refine the wastewater even further, to the point where BP Concrete will be able to replace more of the mix water with the reclaimed water.

BP Concrete also practices concrete recycling when large volumes of concrete are returned to the plants.

“We pour large, interlocking blocks that are sold for many uses, such as retaining walls, barriers or other construction projects,” said Ryan. “If there is surplus concrete after these methods of recycling are at capacity, we send it to Rocky Road Recycling, where the product is crushed and reused in new infrastructure and construction projects as base.”

BP Concrete is able to recycle up to 350 m³ of concrete per month (about 32 times the size of a concrete mixer truck) using approximately 40 block forms, which eliminates the need to handle the returned product after it is cured, avoiding heavy and costly wear and tear on equipment.

_{Rocky Road Recycling Crushing Facility}

According to Ryan, these waste management and concrete recyclability strategies are implemented on every project possible, which is important since the BP Concrete team is consistently busy.

Braden Shaw, Sales Manager, BP Concrete, said that despite the ongoing challenges presented by the pandemic, the company is expecting to have had a successful year volume-wise by the end of 2021.

“Our small commercial and residential contractors are experiencing very busy schedules week-over-week,” he said. “Most of our small residential clients are completely booked with small projects until the end of 2021. The large commercial market remains competitive, but our market share on these small-scale and large-scale projects is expected to remain intact.”

_{BP Concrete's Portable Ready Mix Plant}

One of the projects that BP Concrete is working on this year is the new Wawanesa tower – a 19-storey building in the heart of downtown Winnipeg that is the latest addition to the city’s True North Square. By the time the project is completed in late 2023, the team expects to deliver a significant volume of concrete to the site.

Another important project for the company this year involves Manitoba Infrastructure’s continued expansion of the concrete pavement network of PTH (provincial trunk highway) 75 near Morris, Manitoba. The team, in collaboration with Bayview Construction, has mobilized its portable ready-mix plant to the site and is expecting to complete the 3-kilometre paving project before fall.

With new possibilities for further enhancing BP Concrete’s waste management and concrete recyclability strategies potentially right around the corner, the company is set to continue its eco-friendly path while maintaining a sizable workload in 2021 and beyond.