Munching concrete

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“It chews concrete,” says Andy Lyons whose company, North Concrete, owns this machine.
 
It is deployed today on the demolition of the old Commonwealth Bank Building, in Parsons Street, the location tipped to for the two new Supreme Courts in Alice Springs.
 
My Lyons says the machine turns old concrete from something that’s difficult and expensive to dispose of, into material that can be sold, after removing the structural steel inside, which also get chopped up in the process, for uses including underfloor, drainage rock and road base.
 
The equipment, including ancillary gear, is worth $160,000.

3 COMMENTS

  1. A former Alice resident had a concrete slab removed this way in SA and was actually paid for the rubble! Here we pay $90 a ton, and I note the large concrete dump on the old south road is growing rapidly.
    Last year I changed tyres in Adelaide and was actually paid for the tyres! Here it would have cost me $80!
    When I queried it, was told they aggregate the tyres, send them to China in containers as back load, put them through liquid nitrogen to make the rubber fall off then sent them back as new tyres.
    Where was the council when all this was happening?? Perhaps turning tyres into plastic wheelie bins which we in the rural area do not need. One size does not fit all!

  2. Yes, it’s disappointing that the tip charges so much. I had to pay $100 a tonne for 2 tonnes of old concrete with absolutely no steel reo in it. This is surely far above their actual land fill cost, and encourages some people to simply dump it for nothing on a bush track.

  3. I paid demolition fees (about $90 per tonne back then) to dump dirt, with some gravel and pine bark chips a few years ago.
    I was told I would be weighed out and the fee calculated then. Was horrified when I got the bill, I complained to the guy at the weigh bridge and he said I had to lodge a complaint with council.
    I paid it as it was no use arguing with the employee, and then wrote to the Mayor about it. I explained what the contents were, included a scan of the payment, after a month of no reply, I called and spoke to the Mayor, who said he would get back to me.
    He never did, no refund, no apology. Guess where the next load went? It came very close to decorating the Mayor’s front yard. So we get to load up, transport and unload our rubbish at the dump, and are charged exorbitant fees for the pleasure, yet those massive mobs of people sitting on the hospital lawns can leave piles of rubbish behind, and nothing gets done about that.
    $30 to dump a TV? Simple solution, unscrew it and chuck it in the wheelie bin.

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