Bahamas: Partanna Global has unveiled its first carbon negative, climate-resilient Home for the World in Nassau. The residence will remove 182.6t/yr of CO2 from the atmosphere. It is the first of 30 planned units, as part of a project to eventually build 1000 Homes for the World in partnership with the Bahamian government.
Heidelberg Materials UK commissions Sutton Courtenay ready-mix concrete plant
UK: Heidelberg Materials UK commissioned its new Sutton Courtenay ready-mix concrete plant in Oxfordshire on 17 October 2023. Local press has reported that the plant is equipped with a waste management system for concrete washout and a rainwater harvesting system.
Cemex USA supplies 18,300m3 of Vertua concrete for hospital project
US: Cemex USA has poured 18,300m3 of Vertua reduced-CO2 concrete in the construction of the Centennial Tower at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas. Cemex USA says that it successfully completed the 20hr pour at the world’s largest medical complex without interrupting surrounding emergency services.
President Jaime Muguiro said “Cemex’s purpose of building a better future comes to life when we participate in projects that improve people’s quality of life, particularly in the area of health services, in the communities in which we serve. Not only are we providing expert logistics and resilient materials, but we are also providing an alternative to lower the carbon footprint of the project with our more sustainable solutions.”
Cemstone opens new Owatonna concrete plant
US: Cemstone celebrated the opening of a new concrete plant in Owatonna, Minnesota on 5 October 2023, when it hosted an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony. Located in an out-of-town industrial park with good highway connections, the new plant has replaced an aging facility that stood much closer to downtown Owatonna, according to the Owatonna People's Press newspaper.
The plant can produce around 190m3/hr of concrete, compared to 84m3/yr at the old facility. General Manager Ken Kuhn said the loading chute at the new site can turn concrete trucks around in three minutes, as opposed to eight minutes before. The plant also features ramps that allow trucks to dump loads of aggregate directly into five large outdoor hoppers, each with a 35t. The previous facility had just one hopper and aggregate had to be transported from a stockpile across the street.
The new plant also features a water recycling system, which Kuhn said is a rarity in the concrete business. Cemstone trucks will return wash water from job sites to the plant, where it will pass through a series of bays to filter out debris and sediments. Once clarified, that water will be used to wash the truck, before being recycled again. The facility will also collect all the process water it produces and approximately half the rainwater from the site for reuse.
