Conveyor Belts Get New Life

Over time each quarry develops a boneyard (a collection of items that no longer serve the plant), but as these materials increase, so does the need to clean it out. Two US Aggregates locations found a solution that removed a significant amount of used belting from their boneyards and helped our family of companies continue their focus on sustainability.

Last year, the Ridgeville and Portland plants learned that Wisconsin-based Atlas Belting recycled used belting – and they literally had tons of it. So, they worked with Atlas to pick up and remove the worn belting, previously used on conveyors across the sites but now had begun stacking up in their boneyards. The Ridgeville location recycled 13.35 tons of material. The Portland location recycled 21.93 tons. During the clean-up effort, the Portland location also recycled 14.6 tons of tires with a local recycling center.

Marc Garringer, Lead Man at Ridgeville, had this to say about the impact of belt recycling at the plant locations. “Just getting rid of it is well worth it for us. Otherwise, we’d have to pay someone to take it.”

Recycling the belting material improved the appearance of the properties. It also eliminated hazards by removing the opportunity for water to puddle and become a breeding ground for mosquitos or a place for wildlife to nest and hide amongst the waste. Once this material was removed from the eastern Indiana plants, it was taken and reused for livestock fencing in Texas. That is a win-win!