Sheehan Group achieve recycled aggregate milestone

Company produces around 330,000 tonnes of high-grade recycled sand products

THE Sheehan Group have produced around 330,000 tonnes of recycled sand – the same volume of sand products that were used to build the world’s tallest building, the Burj-Khalifa, in Dubai.

The Oxfordshire-based recycling firm produces high-grade construction quality coarse sand and fine sand at its Dix Pit recycling site, where a CDE wet-processing plant has saved around 825,000 tonnes of C&D waste going to landfill since 2012.

Last year, Sheehan Group became one of the first waste-recycling operators in the UK to benefit from density separation technology, as part of a major upgrade to its CDE reprocessing facility for the supply of higher-quality recycled sand products. 

The company has also enjoyed producing a record volume of low carbon recycled concrete blocks (in the past 12 months), which contain a minimum of 75% recycled and secondary aggregate.

Tara Sheehan, finance director of Sheehan, believes more and more contractors are embracing high-grade recycled sand, which has a lower carbon footprint and protects a scarce natural resource.

‘It largely goes unreported that sand is on the endangered natural resource list. Globally, around 13 billion tonnes of sand are mined for construction and the impact on the environment is vast and unsustainable,’ she commented.

‘Natural resources will not be able to cope with ongoing demand, but there are alternative solutions that are sustainable. Our circular driven economy approach to recycling C&D waste not only reduces the amount of waste going to landfill, but it also creates high-quality recycled products that can be used in local projects.

‘In eight years, we have produced 333,000 tonnes of recycled sand, which competes with mined products on the market. We are finding more contractors are requesting recycled sand for use in construction projects and, by doing so, are helping make a positive difference to the climate emergency.’